


If It's Not One Thing, It's Your Mother

by PC_Hopkins (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Holidays, Humour, Love, M/M, Relationship Problems, Romance, basically a slice of life, mystrade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-09-10
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:13:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/PC_Hopkins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week in the country is dragged through the mud by the infamous Mummy Holmes (and various unwanted guests) as Lestrade struggles with his feelings and Mycroft struggles with everyone else's.</p><p>(Also pretty well abandoned by this point.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Week Spent In the Country? It’s Completely Depraved!

It started, as all good things do, with a vicious argument.

Dinner the night Mycroft returned from his hush-hush, top-secret trip to Cornwall had been a quiet affair. Mycroft had black rings under his eyes, and kept blinking rapidly every so often, and Greg had just wrapped up a case involving a schoolteacher and several hacked up children. Needless to say, they spent most of the meal in silence. When the waiter came round to take the dessert order, Greg reckoned they’d better abstain so Mycroft didn’t fall asleep over his lemon tart, paid the bill before his sleepy boyfriend could protest, and drove them home. Home, in this case, was Mycroft’s rather ostentatiously rich apartment in Knightsbridge, which Greg was all fine with because his bed was literally the most comfortable thing he had ever slept on, and he would be criminally stupid to not take advantage of such a thing. The man had silk sheets. They felt divine against bare skin (even if they were a bugger to clean.)

"You didn’t have to pay," Mycroft muttered, slowly sliding off his clothing, slowly folding it up, and slowly crawling into bed.

Greg was already in bed, and curled in close, nuzzling at Mycroft’s neck. The elder Holmes made a soft, slightly irritated sound. "I wanted to pay."

"Strange. You are the first person who has ever insisted." He fixed Greg with a bleary, but intense stare. "I don’t... understand you," he admitted, voice quiet.

"I’m not that complex."

"That’s not the issue..." Mycroft’s voice trailed off into silence, broken only by the rustling of sheets as Greg tried to find the perfect position for both cuddling and sleeping. Eventually he pushed one leg through both of Mycroft’s, pressed flush against his back, and slung one arm around his waist. From his even, steady breaths, Greg thought the other man had drifted off, and was startled when he murmured: "I’m going to Norfolk in a couple of days."

"Oh, sweet, you just got back." Mycroft made another irritated sound, although whether it was at the nickname or in sympathy he couldn’t tell. "Doesn’t the Queen know you’re buggered?"

"I should hope not. She would be quite distressed. Might even knight you."

He snorted. "Sorry, I meant tired, not..."

There was a hum that vibrated gorgeously against his chest. He felt a quiet, potent ache spring up as well, and tried to press against more of Mycroft. Greg had missed him with a ferocity that was bloody terrifying in its intensity, which, when combined with his less-than-stellar day, made him feel unusually morose and clingy.

"Norfolk isn’t state business," was the reply. "It’s personal."

"I’d hate to know the person who pissed you off."

The vibration shuddered; Mycroft was chuckling soundlessly. "You misunderstand: I meant family business. We... my mother has an estate in Norfolk. I’ve been remiss lately, and she is quite eager for me to come up."

An estate in Norfolk. Of course. This was the Holmes family they were talking about. "How long for?" No, he wasn’t whining, he just had… something in his throat.

"No more than a week." He evidently felt Greg’s sigh, pressing back into him briefly in wordless apology. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep, breath rasping, but Greg continued to stay awake, feeling properly miserable and mulling aimlessly over the day.

A thought occurred to him, very slowly, and it continued to itch at him the entire night through, bleeding right through into the next morning. At first he dismissed it offhand as being a ridiculous idea, but he was nothing if not excellent at convincing himself to do stupid things, and the more he thought about it, the less it seemed like a crazed delusion. What would be so wrong in joining Mycroft in Norfolk, after all? They were... if not in love, at least at the stage where he wouldn’t be ashamed to bring Mycroft home to his family. (At least, he wouldn’t if his dad weren’t a raging homophobe, and if he ever managed to fully reconnect with his parents after twenty years of radio silence and a painful family reunion that had left new scars instead of healing old ones.) Sherlock was fine with his brother being gay, and Mycroft was very comfortable with it as well – not dangerously closeted, or anything. So didn’t it stand to reason Mycroft’s mum would be pretty gracious about the whole taking the new boyfriend over thing? He brooded over breakfast before finally deciding to propose it to Mycroft, who still looked somewhat worse for wear.

"Hey," he began. Mycroft glanced up from smirking smugly at The News of the World (who’d been going through phone hacking allegations, or something; Greg didn’t pay much attention to the news about the news.) "You know the Norfolk thing that you were—”

“Which Norfolk… thing?” Mycroft interrupted, looking slightly alarmed.

“With your mum.”

“Oh.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. Greg was getting the distinct feeling he wasn’t meant to know about the Norfolk thing. “Yes. That. It’s nothing, really, just mother being…” He flashed a strained smile. “Motherly. I presume—you saw the invitation?”

Okay, _now_ he was getting confused. “Er, no? You told me last night. There was an invitation?” Mycroft’s mum was the sort to send invitations? Well, he supposed it explained several aspects of the Holmes brothers…

And hopefully if he met her, he might learn how Mycroft could go from relatively good-humoured to impassive in about point five of a second. There was no gradual transition; his expression simply passed into the realm of blank, cold civility, complete with that fucking patronizing smile. “Ah, I believe I know your question. You needn’t concern yourself with it.”

It was six in the morning, and he didn’t particularly _want_ an argument, but he couldn’t help rankling at that. “Really,” he said flatly. “And what am I going to ask?”

“Whether or not your presence is required, of course. It is quite alright,” Mycroft added, in what he probably thought was a soothing tone; “I would also prefer you not to go.”

On reflection, he probably should have taken longer to cherish the idea that he’d actually (unintentionally) gotten one over on a Holmes but, as it was, he was a little busy working himself into a foul temper. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

The perfect mask of affability and condescension faltered for a moment as Mycroft considered him, before he said smilingly, "Come now, Gregory, we two both know the reasons."

He should let this go, he really should. "Humour me," Greg said, voice rising along with his anger.

Mycroft’s expression gave way to pure, hard annoyance. "From what we understand—" Greg wondered if he’d realised he’d used the royal ‘we,’ "—your relationship with your own parents is not what one would call ideal. We..." He blinked slowly, mouth twisting. Apparently he had. " _I_ had thought to spare you the difficulty of meeting my mother."

Greg’s teeth were grit so hard that his jaw started to ache. _I am a rock. Unfeeling, solid, calm. And maybe if I tell myself that another hundred times this meditation calmness shit will work._ "My family is none of your..." His voice cracked. He stopped, did the fucking stupid rock thing, and tried again: "I refuse to talk about this. You’re being uncommunicative, Mycroft."

" _I’m_ being uncommunicative?" the other man said, in a tone perilously close to a sneer, and one that continued to drip with sarcastic irritation: "My dear—" oh God how Greg wanted to deck him for that, "—I am not the one refusing to talk about the underlying issues, which are the very source of our problems."

"My family… stuff is not the effing underlying issue! The underlying issue is that you won’t bloody open up! I learnt about this trip by, by what? Accident? Because you were too tired to self-censor—oh, don’t try and bloody deny it. What the hell did you do with the invitation anyway: burn it?" He was being sarcastic, but the way Mycroft pressed his lips together in stony silence made Greg realise he was right on the mark. "Jesus Christ. This isn’t some sort of... of James Bond film, Mycroft. It’s your— _our_ life, and I couldn’t give a toss if you’re double-oh-seven, or M, or whatever while you’re at work, you have to be... I want you to be open with me."

"Thank you for your expert opinion, Gregory," Mycroft said coldly. Greg bit back an aggravated sigh. "I was hitherto unable to determine what my life was comparable to, and now that I have a pop culture icon I can reference I certainly feel much more at ease." On that note, he stood from his chair and stalked into the bedroom with affected hauteur, but not before giving one last parting shot: "At least I am proficient at my job." The door was shut firmly, the soft click echoing in the sudden silence of the kitchen.

Greg’s hot anger drained from him, to be replaced by an icy tightness in his chest. In his mind’s eye, he could see the faces of the three children they’d found in the basement - two of them girls about his own daughter’s age, twelve to thirteen, and the other a boy of about six. He covered his face with both hands, feeling sick and trying to rid his mind of the voice that whispered, _he’s right, he’s right, he’s right._ After a few moments of focusing on breathing in, and out, and in, and out, and hearing Mycroft moving around in the other room, Greg rose, snatching up his half-eaten bowl of porridge and car keys from the bench. Throwing his bowl at the bedroom door would probably be childish, and he would regret it, as it was a very nice bowl that hardly deserved to be smashed. He instead chucked it into the sink, and left for work, slamming the front door on his way out.

 

\---

 

Work was hell. The Earth went round the Sun. His team was looking a bit shell-shocked after that case, and he spent the day poring distractedly over old paperwork and administrative forms and other bureaucratic nonsense. Sherlock didn’t come in, for which he was grateful, because he was still jostling for a fight that he knew the consultant would happily provide. Greg left at six o’clock, earlier than normal but still later than most of his division, and headed home. Home, in this case, was his own neglected, empty and small flat, where the light of his life resided: his cat. Toby, at least, was happy to see him, butting his head against Lestrade’s legs and twining in between them. The bastard probably only wanted dinner. Still, he would consent to being briefly cuddled in return for a half a tin of sardines.

Mycroft would probably call or text. Greg switched his mobile off for the night, and, as an afterthought, unplugged the landline. This turned out to be a stupid decision, as there was nothing to eat in the fridge except for a large block of cheese, left there from the last time Mycroft came over. He shut the fridge door, leaning his forehead against it and covering his face with his hands. Muted anger and upset prickled at his stomach… he’d order takeaway.

The rest of the night passed in a dull and distressingly sober blur. (If he touched alcohol, he knew he wouldn’t stop drinking until his liver gave out.) There wasn’t a lot of furniture in the flat, and none at all in his bedroom, so he slept on the couch. Or, to be more accurate, he stayed awake late into the night while lying on his couch.

How quickly he’d assimilated into Mycroft’s neat little life. And after, what: one and a half years of going out? It wasn’t a terribly long time – longer than he’d known his ex-wife when he married her, granted, but, as he’d accidentally gotten her pregnant, it was slightly different to the situation he found himself in now. He was fine with the pace of things when everything was running smoothly, but when they hit the bumps, they hit the bumps _hard_. Getting into a fight with Mycroft was almost impossible to do, and literally impossible to win. It was like trying to argue with an iceberg; not only was it cold and immovable, he could also try and chip away at it all he liked, and there’d only be more bloody ice. There wasn’t some sort of external layer he had to break through before everything turned to roses and daffodils, no; Mycroft _was_ ice. Strip all that away and… well, Greg didn’t know what would happen, or what would be left, but it probably wouldn’t be pretty.

Mycroft appeared to be content with how quickly Greg was adapting to him, just so long as _he_ didn’t have to change anything for Greg. And, sure, maybe the visiting-your-mum thing was a bit stupid, but he genuinely wanted to understand his boyfriend, and his occasional bizarre habits and mannerisms, better. If he didn’t want to open up, well... fine. That was fine. Greg just wanted some time apart to lick his wounds after every fight, every tailored barb and piercing comment that came his way. A week apart was looking more and more appealing – by then Mycroft would be in better spirits, and he himself wouldn’t be dreaming about little girls screaming and bloody rag dolls in basements and why didn’t you help us in time...

He flailed awake, falling heavily off the couch and staying down for the moment, hardly daring to breathe. For a while, he thought his nightmare had woken him, but then he heard a, ‘ _tap, tap, tap_ ’ on his front door. _Fucking hell._ He struggled upwards, growled out a, “Coming!” and checked his reflection in the window. Not overly terrible considering he’d had five hours sleep. He ruffled his hair up unconsciously, and then tried in vain to comb it back flat. Then he flicked his mobile on. It informed him that it was the ungodly hour of eight in the morning, and that there were two missed calls on his mobile: a voicemail he couldn’t bring himself to listen to, and another text message sent last night, which simply read, _Are you coming home?_ Greg really did not want to have to reply to that right now. He supposed he would, just to see Mycroft before he left, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to face trial-by-Holmes at the moment.

The person tapping insistently at the door turned out to be a brown-haired woman tapping at her Blackberry, and he was taken aback for several seconds before she glanced up. “Hi,” he said. “Uh, Anthea?”

Her eyebrows rose in amusement; she turned back to the phone. It occurred to him that probably wasn’t her real name. “Mr. Holmes wonders if you would be amenable to joining him…” He opened his mouth to refuse, but she overrode him: “…in driving over to Norfolk and spending the foreseeable week there.”

“Couldn’t he have come and asked himself?” She looked up again, an, ‘I-am-going-to-pretend-you-never-asked-that-question,’ smile on her face. “No,” Greg muttered. “Of course not. Uh, look, tell him, thanks but no thanks. I can’t take any time off work—”

“It’s already been arranged, Inspector,” she interrupted, lowering the phone slightly.

“Great. Well, in that case, I need to spend the week getting the flat ready for my daughter coming over next—”

“We have people to do that sort of work. It will be attended to.”

Greg’s mouth thinned. “Are you going to take, ‘no,’ for an answer?”

“I was under the impression that you had requested this. It is a very nice estate,” she added, offhandedly. “You will enjoy yourself.”

He was struggling to maintain righteous indignation, swamped as he was by exhausted apathy. “But, I haven’t got any clothes packed, or anything—”

Anthea looked distinctly unimpressed, an expression that had been growing more and more pronounced since he’d started voicing protests. “You do not know Mr. Holmes very well if you think that is a problem.”

“Look,” he started, “you can’t just swan in and start telling me what I know and don’t know about my—Mycroft.”

“If you think so, Inspector,” she said calmly. “However, you will get in the car. Someone will come around to attend to your cat, if you should choose to go to Norfolk.”

“I’m not going to get in your bloody car, so you can piss right off.”

Five minutes later he was in the bloody car, rubbing at his wrist and warring between annoyance and respect. Anthea looked perfectly composed in the seat next to him, absorbed in her smart phone once more. He winced when his wrist popped: she had a hell of a grip. She dropped him off near the front of Mycroft’s apartment block, not even bothering to say goodbye or look up from her phone.

There was a white, vintage car idling on the kerb. Greg was pretty sure it was a MGA coupe, hideously expensive, and, from the sound of the engine, would run beautifully. Mycroft was leaning against the passenger door, looking simultaneously hot as hell and dead tired. He looked as if he’d just come from the Diogenes, pinstriped suit and all. He straightened up when he saw Greg, one hand twitching upwards slightly and the other maintaining a death grip on the umbrella. His perfectly cordial greeting and strained comments on the lovely day they were having were met by raised eyebrows and Greg fighting back a sudden, wry grin. Mycroft also raised his eyebrows, locking them both into an eyebrow-raising contest for a bit before he gave a put upon, fond sigh and got in the car, calling out:

“The keys are in the ignition. If… you’re coming, that is. If you are not, I suppose I might have to drive myself. In the sleep-deprived state I appear to find myself, however, I would likely crash, but please – do not let that influence your decision.”

“Well, when you sell it like that,” Greg replied lightly, running a hand through his hair again. Once in the car, he hesitated, glancing across at his lover. “Look, can you just tell me straight up if you want me to come or not?” When Mycroft opened his eyes (having closed them while he got in) he added hastily: “I don’t mind if you don’t. I won’t. It’s okay.”

Mycroft leaned back in his seat, completely silent for several moments. “Permit me, if you will, to answer your question with another question: do _you_ want to come?”

“Yes,” he said decisively, “but I don’t mind if you—”

He was cut off: “You already have your answer. If you desire to go, I desire you to go. Now, could we perhaps commence driving? With traffic the way it is, I do not wish to dawdle for any longer than necessary.”

The tension wasn’t completely gone, but Greg could breathe easier, and even crack a grin. “Come off it, you telling me a bit of London traffic’s going to detain you?”

“I am but a humble servant of Her Majesty’s, and even our monarch has minimal control over the mysterious force that is the London traffic system.”

 

\---

 

This demure statement turned out to be absolute rubbish, of course, as they were out of the city in bloody record time, and onto the M11. Mycroft fussed over telling him precisely how he should be driving, taking half an hour to finally conclude that Greg was a perfectly able driver. The car seemed to be Mycroft’s pride and joy, despite how little he claimed to know about them. Greg suspected the only reason he’d been given the keys to Mycroft’s baby was so that the man could have a nap in the passenger’s seat, trying to make up for a month of what probably contained little to no sleep.

It started spitting rain just as he was about to wind down a window, and quickly developed into a steady, if relatively mild downpour that had the wipers working at half-speed. That was good, he supposed, with the drought and everything, but the landscape turned into a dark green and brown smear, trees and bushes and mud and grass all blending in to form a bland kaleidoscope. These were exactly the type of driving conditions he liked to avoid: there were far too many trucks on the slippery highway for his liking. The rain petered out shortly after they merged onto the A10, and the anaemic winter sun heralded the rest of the drive.  He’d sussed out their destination was roughly 10 miles out of King’s Lynn, tucked inland and on a plot of land that he, “couldn’t miss,” which was slightly ominous.

As Greg was wondering if he could get the map out of the glove box, check it _and_ drive all at the same time, Mycroft woke up. It was always fascinating watching him transition from virtually dead to the world to awake in about three seconds, his face losing the slackness of sleep and shifting to hyper-alert awareness. He saw that the only person around was Greg, blinked slowly and gave a small, discreet yawn. Greg glanced over, smiling sympathetically as his expression collapsed into real exhaustion.

"You were only out for an hour or so."

"You make it sound as if I had been kidnapped," Mycroft replied, shifting minutely in the red, leather seat, rolling his head experimentally and muttering in pain.

"I’d like to see someone try. Ay, you can kip for a bit longer, if you want. Still about a half hour till we get there."

"No, I shall stay awake. I wish to have at least half my wits about me..." That said, he relaxed back into the seat, exhaling quietly.

"So,” Greg began, “this house I’m meant to not be able to miss…” A thought occurred to him: “Oh, hell, it’s not a whopping great castle, is it? Because I really have to draw the line there."

"Of course not," Mycroft sighed, eyes closed. "Absurd. _Draughty_. Impossible to fund, besides. No, it’s merely a manor house."

A smile twitched at the corner of Greg’s lips. “Lord of the manor, eh?” His response was an indelicate snort.

“Hardly. I have no wish to take over the place of my father. In the household, at least. Mother is quite capable of running it herself. She has a knack for…” He trailed off, pursing his lips, and instead concluded: “Well, you’ll see.”

“Sounds great.” He was determined to be as cheerfully optimistic about this trip as possible, even after their pretty turbulent beginning. “What’s she like, your mum?”

Mycroft was silent for a while, his face that particular version of Zen like calm it attained whenever he was considering how best to respond. “She’s very… strong-willed. I daresay that I take after her in many ways, but she is quite… _different_.”

“Anything like Sherlock, or what?”

“No, no, not that particular blend of different. It is quite difficult to describe, actually. I feel I must tell you in advance she is very unafraid to speak her mind and… rather blunt about certain topics. You two will probably get along well,” he added, sounding doubtful. Happy and positive, Greg would be _happy_ and _positive_. Yes, they probably would get on well. Hopefully.

“Yeah, course we will.” After his (slightly hesitantly made) affirmation, the rest of the trip passed quietly. Mycroft occasionally woke up enough to point out the names and histories of various forest reserves, with enough genuine glee in his voice when he retold the legends behind their names to make up for Greg’s usual lack of interest in history. Mycroft also commandeered the map, although he protested that the route was perfectly straightforward and his memory was such that he did not require one; Greg retorted that if they got lost, he was blaming Mycroft. And so the compromise was that the guidebook sat in Mycroft’s lap, unused but reassuringly there.

They turned off a fair ways before they got to King’s Lynn, travelling right across the county and into scenic terrain that Greg pronounced as being, “pretty.” His lover rolled his eyes at that detailed assessment, muttering about poetry and eloquence and the English language. The roads they drove down were generally hemmed in on both sides by thick, vibrantly green shrubbery – “ _Ligustrum ovalifolium_ ” – but occasionally breaks in the hedges revealed fields of red poppies, shivering and shimmering in the light breeze. More frequent still were fields of wheat and barley, but they weren’t as picturesque as the swaying poppies. When he remarked about the little red flowers, Mycroft started dryly quoting Keats at him – “Through the dancing poppies stole a breeze most softly lulling to my soul…” – and refused to stop until he directed that they turn off the small road onto a long, gravel driveway. He was solemnly finishing off the last couplet of The Eve of St. Agnes, Greg laughing and telling him to stop (mostly because he wanted to kiss him) when they reached the front gates after a solid five minutes of driving.

Greg’s first thought upon seeing the house looming in the not-too-far distance was that he’d somehow stumbled into a Harry Potter book. It wasn’t Hogwarts, but it was like the manor of the older, blond-haired actor he found reasonably attractive – Malfoy, that was it. The house was very… well, symmetrical was the only word to really describe it; there was a black door under the entrance arch, flanked on either side by walls that jutted out into the front garden. It was also unashamedly white limestone, standing out starkly against the virtual forest of trees that surrounded it, and fucking _massive_. He’d been too wrapped up in driving and laughing to have been seriously concerned about the bloody long driveway, but now it was slowly sinking in that the Holmes manor – oh, Christ, it probably had some ridiculously posh name, too – was on a plot of land that was about two, three hundred acres. Greg wasn’t self-conscious enough to feel embarrassed about still being in yesterday’s work suit, but it was a near thing.

The manor was lovely, yes, certainly, but with the bizarre feeling he got from watching a period drama on ITV that was trying very hard to be Victorian, but only managed to be _just not right_ – he supposed it might have been the intercom Mycroft leant out of his window to address, and the fact that the gates swung open by themselves. However, there was also something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint, something very— He realised he was treating it like a murder investigation and hurriedly stopped that line of thinking. It was a holiday, for Christ’s sake, not a stakeout.

Mycroft likely wouldn’t appreciate the reference to such modern literature as Harry Potter, so he waited for his partner to finish speaking before teasing:

“Taking me to Pemberley, eh?”

Mycroft took a moment to make the connection, before scowling at him. “I am not Mister Darcy,” he informed Greg loftily. “And _you_ are not Elizabeth Bennet.”

Greg grinned, placed one hand on his chest with put-on distress, and sighed, “Must you crush all my childhood dreams?”

He was considered for a moment, before Mycroft scoffed, “Oh, do pull the other one,” and then proceeded to look very superior at the expression of utter shock he received. “I am not unaware of slang, you know,” he remarked as Greg, shaking his head incredulously, parked the car.

“‘Pull the other one’?” he repeated, eyebrows raised. Mycroft gave him a none-too-gentle tap on the arm with the map book when he sniggered. “Come on, you, let’s go and be the Darcys before you begin Cockney rhyming, or, heaven forefend, _swearing_.”

The house was only slightly less foreboding up close, although he was pretty sure he’d seen stables behind it and was now feeling very middle-class. It was about two stories – well, floors – high, with rectangular windows evenly spread along the outer surface. He counted about twenty-four all up. Why you’d need twenty four rooms – possibly even more – was beyond him; he could survive, _had_ survived, quite happily in two or three. Likely, a comment of, “Cor, blimey,” would also not be appreciated, so he refrained, grinning wildly at the thought. Mycroft glanced at him suspiciously, as he rapped on the ornate gold – _gold!_ – doorknocker. It was in the shape of a lion’s head; he _had_ stumbled into the world of Jane Austen.

A markedly plain older gentleman welcomed them and proceeded to look utterly thrilled at the presence of Mycroft. Well, as thrilled as a butler – or was it valet – could be, which was apparently a reserved smile, and an affable, “Mycroft, we’re very glad you could come.” Greg got the impression from the way Mycroft looked momentarily startled that it was akin to being grabbed into a bear hug and slapped on the back.

They were then led into an entrance hall, and Greg stopped pretending he wasn’t gawping like a country yokel – although he did manage to close his mouth after three seconds, which he considered an achievement, because the entrance hall was _bigger than his flat_ and oh Christ he was gaping again. He thought it rather justified though, as there was literally a three-tiered chandelier smack bang in the center of the ceiling, the clear individual crystals reflecting the light into the iridescent colours of the rainbow. The rest of the room was cold, white marble, with a fucking grand staircase leading up to the second floor. Jesus Christ, if he’d thought that he’d felt inadequate _before_ , it was nothing compared to what he felt now: like an ice block was pressed against his neck, running so cold it burned and sliding down to pool in his stomach.

With difficulty – _you’re still in fucking yesterday’s suit you daft bastard, what the hell does he even see in you, certainly not_ this – he pushed down the voice in the back of his head that was all too happy to start listing off his flaws, and forced onto his face a smile, instead of the stunned grimace that was threatening to emerge. Luckily, Mycroft was both engaged in talking to the butler/valet, and nearly dead on his feet, so he (hopefully) hadn’t noticed Greg’s inner struggle between, ‘ _oh dear God I’m a low paid DI in his forties; I am not prepared for this_ ,’ and, ‘ _Jesus Christ, he’s your boyfriend, Greg, and you asked for this; get a bloody hold of yourself_ ,’ where the latter thankfully won over.

The butler did, in fact, turn out to be a butler rather than a valet, and was called Barrymore, which was unsettlingly familiar in a way he couldn’t quite work out. It was starting to become something of a theme, this sense of unease… but he would work through it. He wanted Mycroft to not regret bringing him, and Greg would try his bloody hardest to make sure he didn’t.

From there, it was a bit of a haze involving trips up stairs with suitcases – the fogginess of his head serving to remind him of his own lack of sleep the night before. The bedroom he was led to was tastefully impersonal – a guest one, he figured, rather than, say, Mycroft’s old bedroom. That might’ve been too weird for his liking, sleeping in the bed that had once been occupied by a younger Mycroft. The room was nice, though, plain cream walls and all. The bed had a rather impressive ornate headboard that stretched right up to the ceiling. There was a fireplace with two plush Victorian spoon-back chairs on the left side of the room, and a door just beyond that which opened onto an ensuite. The drapes were unfortunately floral on blue print, as was a slightly out-of-place chaise lounge. Greg dumped the bags next to the ugly lounge – he probably shouldn’t think that; could be some sort of inherited furniture with great history. Maybe someone had died on it, and they’d had to get it re-upholstered, but the re-upholsterer had terrible taste and did it in floral. He was perhaps thinking about this too much.

He was rifling through his bag, which, although having been packed by someone else, contained a packet of nicotine patches _and_ the box of smokes he thought had been a secret, in the hidden compartment he usually stashed them. No secrets among Holmeses, he supposed wearily; they were like bloodhounds in that regard, able to sniff out the slightest hint of anything private and drag it kicking and screaming into the light. The compartment was unsafely concealed once more when he heard a creak of a floorboard and looked up to see Mycroft lingering in the doorway.

“Supervising the unpacking effort?” Greg enquired, turning back to the case. Mycroft hummed in response. “Bet it’s nice to be home, eh?”

“It’s agreeable,” he conceded. Greg had worked out early on that was Mycroft for, ‘I’m ecstatic!’ “The house is much quieter than my memory would have me believe, although that may be due to the absence of my brother.”

“Yeah, I can imagine.”

“But the staff are pleased to have me back.” Mycroft paused, before adding, “They’re very pleased with you.”

Was that what he’d been doing while Greg was unpacking? Well, a good start, at least. “So, got your butler’s seal of approval, have I?”

“Oh, yes, he’s quite taken with you. I’m starting to get rather jealous, in fact.” Greg glanced up to see Mycroft smirking at him. The warmth that bloomed in his chest was fierce and surprising, and he couldn’t help grinning back.

“Ah ha ha,” he retorted dryly. “Well, break it to him gently, yeah? You’re the only man for me.” And then, just like that, it hit him. Thankfully, Lestrades did not blush, otherwise his face would be crimson after he realised—God, he was in deep. Why had he...? Why now? His head was spinning with the sheer force of it.

“Is that so?” his lover murmured, and for one terrifying, exhilarating moment, Greg was sure he knew and was going to comment upon it or, God, _do_ something about it. “His wife will be pleased to hear it, I’m sure.”

Greg wasn’t sure if it was relief that struck him like a sledgehammer, or disappointment. It was best not to think about it too much. “You know me, happy to help.” His tone was cheerful, and completely forced past the sudden knot in his chest. He felt irrationally glad when Mycroft’s smirk softened into a smile and, citing a need to find his mother, he slipped out of the room. Greg took the opportunity to hide in—well, strategically retreat to the bathroom, where he let himself collapse onto the toilet seat, hanging his head between both legs and scrubbing harshly at the back of his neck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This realisation, this bleeding _epiphany_ had shaken him to the core, and was slowly stripping him of all his defenses, one by one. It was both horrifying and amazing: Heaven and Hell. It was... oh, Christ, no; he couldn’t let himself think it. What if...? No, no ‘what if’s either. He was too old to agonise over things like this.

There were two things Greg was certain of in life. One was that the sun rose and set everyday – the passage of time was impossible to stop. The second was that things always got worse before they inevitably had to get better. It was only when you hit rock bottom that you could understand and appreciate true happiness. Now, there was a third thing.

It was the fact that he, Gregory Lestrade, was stupidly, unashamedly, and irrevocably in love with Mycroft Holmes.

And, shut up, he had every right to be a dramatic ponce about it. It was love. He’d need a second to stop being undone from this revelation. This was meant to be a fucking holiday, not a sudden attack of romantic feelings he’d much rather hash out back home. There at least he could run away if said feelings were not reciprocated. No, he would tough it out here without letting it slip. Somehow. For a week. Dear Christ.

Okay. He rubbed his neck again. He was fine now. Greg would face this like a man. By not facing it until it was absolutely imperative. Right. Yes, he was good at ignoring his problems; the length of his last marriage confirmed that. They’d have to talk about it. But not now. Maybe he could even wait until he knew that Mycroft felt the same? A slightly hysterical laugh escaped him; he’d be in his eighties before he knew _that_. No, it had to be soon. When they got back to London, yes, they’d go out for dinner and he would be romantic and charming and there would be fireworks and at the end of it all he would passionately declare his love. Yeah. Sure.

He was in so deep, and he still didn’t know how far down it extended; a yawning, seemingly endless chasm was at his feet, and to get to the bottom he’d either have to jump, or wait to be pushed. Even if he preferred the latter, he was aware it wouldn’t happen until it was probably too late. Love was a bloody tricky business.

 

\---

 

Eventually, the nervous breakdown subsided; he washed his face, gave the unpacking up as a bad job, and set out in search of Mycroft. What he found instead was that the house was really big, all the corridors looked the same, and it was very easy to get lost. He probably should have expected that, it being a manor house, and all. It took him half an hour to find someone else, which was a little bit terrifying. A manor house that was virtually empty. Practically begging for one of those Poirot-type murders, with the staff all having their little secrets and scandals. Maybe that’s why Sherlock was so keen on detective work. The person he found was the helpful butler, who had the grace to not look overtly amused at Greg stumbling through the house. He offered to escort Greg, and Greg accepted; he’d rather bite down on his pride and get somewhere than still be wandering around that bloody labyrinth.

Something else that creeped him out about this place were the portraits he’d found dotted about the place. The majority of paintings in the halls were of landscapes, so when he came across a family relative, it was pretty startling. Most looked like Mycroft, but he found a couple with an uncanny resemblance to Sherlock; the plaque on one of them revealed that it was _actually_ Sherlock, aged 15, and looking surly as any teenager.

Barrymore was surprisingly easy to talk to, if a bit reserved. Sort of a pre-requisite for a butler, though, wasn’t it? A certain sense of aloof, yet sincere, politeness. Their topics mostly revolved around the shocking weather on the trip up, the trip itself, a brief summation of how he had met Mycroft (he’d hastily thrown together a stuttered response involving Sherlock and knowing him through work, which had diverted Barrymore’s attention onto the younger brother) and some general facts about the house – fifty rooms! Barrymore just smiled whenever Greg asked about what it might have been like growing up here, and insisted he pose his questions to Mycroft, as it wasn’t Barrymore’s place or privilege to divulge. Now even Mycroft’s _childhood_ was like a bloody state secret. Double-oh-seven, eat your heart out.

One thing he _had_ learnt was that Mother Holmes wasn’t in residence at the moment. She had intended to arrive roughly the same time they had – at noon – but had been delayed, and sent her most sincere apologies, etcetera, etcetera. If he’d been twenty, even ten years younger, he would’ve taken it as a good chance to become intimately acquainted with their no doubt fantastic wine cellar. As a recovered alcoholic (and with the wisdom gained through many mornings spent hung-over and miserable), he restrained himself to sharing a bottle of gorgeously dry red with Mycroft. Well, okay, maybe they made their way through a _couple_ more bottles by the end of the night.

Looking back on the rest of the day, he couldn’t quite say what he’d been doing – not only because of his exhaustion, but also the simple fact that there apparently wasn’t much _to_ do at a manor house except try to avoid thinking about both work and his ill-timed inconvenience of the heart. One had to win, and it wasn’t going to be work, so he was left feeling sappy and painfully obvious throughout both lunch and dinner.

When they got to the third bottle, Greg coaxed his boyfriend into taking it with them outside, and found a charming little white, iron-wrought table and matching chairs. The vantage point gave them an uninterrupted view of the grounds, lit only by the moonlight, but what took his breath away was the sky. Hundreds upon thousands of stars were strewn upon the night sky, ranging from white, to purple, to blue, to even green, sparking and shimmering over a veil of darkness.

He could feel Mycroft’s gaze on him, and heard his, not unkind, laughter – somewhat giddy after the wine, because his lover was an absolute lightweight – when Greg stared, mouth open, at the brilliant night sky.

“‘s a bit different to the stars’n London,” he explained, too pleasantly tipsy to be embarrassed. “I think... When I was a kid, and we lived in Somerset, me dad used to take me out in the hols, and we’d walk for ages and ages... We’d get to this field, and he would sit down, with me, and he would name the cons’ellations and stars. All of ‘em; was sort of a hobby of his. Course,” he laughed, “I can’t remember most of ‘em now, even though we did it all the time.”

“I don’t know anything about astronomy,” Mycroft admitted, eyes heavily lidded, a small smirk playing on his face. He was also growing steadily more flushed with every sip he took, the pink hue of his skin cast into relief by the candle they’d taken out to light the table. “You’ll have to instruct me.”

“Might take a while. So many of ‘em.”

“Well,” he said, stretching his arms wide in a broad, very un-Mycroft like gesture, the wine in his glass sloshing dangerously close to the rim, “we’ve got all the time we need right here.”

Greg looked at him, looked at this man who was smiling and blushing and bright eyed and getting more and more drunk, and thought, with simple, warm acceptance, _I love you._

Instead of voicing that, he said, “Right, well, better get cracking, then.” His chair had already been dragged next to Mycroft’s over the course of the night, and he leaned into the other man, pointing up at the brightest star in the sky. “That’d be Orion, cos it’s what takes over the night durin’ winter. See how the stars make a line, yeah? That’s the Belt, and then they’re joined to the two up top and the ones I’m pointing at down the bottom – the really bright one, in the corner? Yep, that’s the one, and right across on the left. Oh, there’s Sirius, the Dog Star. It comes together with five others to make the winter hexagon – although, dad used to call it the heavenly G, cos it’s all wobbly... Look, over there you can see...”


	2. Meeting Mummy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the Dragon Lady.

The place Greg woke up in was definitely not the guest room. For one, he didn't remember the walls being a calm, sea blue; the curtains being a very nice, very _un_ -floral white; or there being a four-poster bed (with light purple drapes, which confused the hell out of him) like the one he found himself in now. It stood to reason, then, that he was in some other bedroom in the house. Which one, he had no bloody idea; there were probably dozens. Greg also felt vaguely ill, and by vaguely he meant in the sense that he was considering throwing up. And he’d only had a bottle to drink. Mycroft had about three; he must be feeling terrible.

As if to confirm his suspicions, the man in question, already burrowed in Greg's arms with his face pressed against the policeman's chest, gave a pitiful moan as Greg tried to shift away. Instead of recoiling at their proximity (Mycroft loathed the ‘needless emotional display’ of cuddling) he clung ever closer to Greg, his mutterings incoherent and full of hazy irritation. Greg snorted, and sank back down in the comfortable bed, quite content to lie there for the rest of the day.

There were more clues to piece together, all of which pointed towards some drunken fumbling the night before. The most incriminating was the fact that they were both mostly naked and sticky, and Greg's arse was aching very pleasantly, indeed. (His neck was also covered in bite marks; Mycroft had a bizarre habit of biting when he topped.)

"Morning, sunshine," he whispered to the grumpy man trying to push through his chest. The response was muffled, but from the snarling tone he guessed it hadn't been very nice. "You're so lovely when you're hung over, sweetling." Mycroft thumped him for that, before curling up under the sheets and beginning to quietly plead to the heavens for death's sweet embrace. He appeared to be quoting Romeo and Juliet in a fit of morbid romance, induced by a no doubt fantastically awful headache. His lover wasn't the liveliest of people in the mornings normally; with a hangover, he was bloody dreadful.

"O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die," he said into the mattress. He was still hanging onto Greg’s rapidly numbing left arm, using it as a makeshift pillow. It wasn’t that he minded, so much as he was concerned his arm was going to turn black and fall off or something.

"I will kiss thy lips," Greg teased, sliding down to nuzzle at Mycroft's cheek. "Haply some poison yet doth hang on them."

He was scowled at suspiciously, before he claimed the other man's mouth in a chaste kiss, pouring all his lingering lo… er, affection from last night into it. _And_ he was able to carefully extract his arm. Win/win.

"I am but a poor, dumb DI; pity me?" Mycroft scorned after breaking off the kiss. "Let me demonstrate my stupidity by reciting the classics ad verbatim. Sometimes, Greg, I do not know how I can stomach your slanderous lies about your own person." Speech over, he sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. "I shall never let you tempt me into drinking ever again."

Greg grinned, kissing the tip of Mycroft's nose before he could protest. "Ah, but you forget my secret for making you adore me."

"Which is?"

"I'm adorable."

Mycroft grumbled at this – something to the effect of, “Disgusting. Accurate, but disgusting,” – but didn't argue the point any further, either agreeing with it or being in too much discomfit to care. “Let me sleep.” It was both a command and a plea (but more of the former. Holmeses did not plead. Or, at least, they did not admit to doing so.) Greg snorted, and proceeded to rib him mercilessly about how little alcohol he could stomach. Over the course of said good-humoured teasing, he ending up curled around a chilly Mycroft, Greg rubbing his nose against the crook of his lover’s neck as Mycroft complained about how cold _his_ nose was. It had begun to rain outside, and Greg resolved to not get out of bed at all today, barring some sort of calamity befalling the house. Several times, his chest felt as if it were swelling up with all the words he couldn’t bring himself to say, and it was a while before he no longer felt the pressing need to _tell him, tell him, tell him_ that drove all other thoughts from his mind.

After that, it did occur to Greg he still had no idea what bedroom of the house they’d had drunken sex in – he’d spied a bottle of lube lying next to a similarly over-turned lamp, and had to smother his laughter. If it was Sherlock’s old room, he was going to hack out a lung—maybe even die from a lack of oxygen. That would be too priceless. And then Greg would get to mock him about the purple bed-curtains, and—was that a copy of _Sense and Sensibility?_ Sherlock would never live this down, if Greg had anything to say about it.

“Mycroft,” he murmured against the shell of his lover’s ear. Mycroft gave an especially eloquent exhale-cum-irritated grunt. “Where are we, exactly?” It was enough to make him stir into a half-awake state, glaring sleepily at the contents of the room.

“Norfolk,” Mycroft resolved a moment later.

“I knew _that_ ,” he replied, chuckling. “In the house, though; what room is this?”

Another irritated sigh. “You’re a detective; work it out.” 

“Well, I thought it might be Sherlock’s old—” He was cut off when Mycroft gave an honest-to-God peal of horrified laughter, ended by an equally as horrified gasp. Greg was both perplexed and amused (but mostly the former. Always the former.) “What?”

“Apologies,” Mycroft replied, calm, but with the resonant tremor of laughter in his voice. This house was bringing out the best in his lover, Greg reflected, grinning back at him and preparing to nudge him and ask why he was apologising. “I was simply amused – and, I must admit, dismayed – at the thought of engaging in such nocturnal activities as those we did in my brother’s childhood room. We are, obviously,” well, to Mycroft, at least, “in _my_ childhood bedroom, which is only a slightly less horrifying place to wake up in.”

Greg managed, rather heroically, to contain himself to snickering instead of the full blown howl that threatened to emerge, until the title of _Sense and Sensibility_ flashed into his mind and he caved in, pressing his face against Mycroft’s shoulder to muffle the noise.

Mycroft was not so amused. Somewhere in between, “Greg, really. It’s not at all humorous,” “I must insist you cease for the benefit of my headache – the one that _you_ instigated,” and, “Greg, kindly desist in that infernal racket or I shall be forced to take immediate and decisive action,” he disappeared (well, less disappeared, and more halfheartedly shoved Greg off and swept out of the room in a display that would be much grander if he were wearing more than a half unbuttoned shirt and socks.) Greg leaned back into the bed, still sniggering even with his fist pressed up against his mouth. He was just calming down when his lover re-entered (the other room appeared to be an ensuite – _of course_ a seven year old Mycroft had needed an ensuite.) Mycroft was holding a scrap of fabric out and staring at it intently. “Greg,” he said, in a tone of sad wonder. “What _have_ you done to my waistcoat?”

A phone beeping cut off Greg’s brilliant reply – something like, “Look at my _shirt!_ ” only it was choked around the spasms of his abdomen and therefore unintelligible. He swore; Mycroft raised both eyebrows. It was standard response, really. Unfortunately, the beeping of a phone – more likely Mycroft’s, but equally it could be Greg’s – necessitated him actually getting up from the warm, comfortable bed and trying to summon up some lucidity. He shot Mycroft a pleading look, which the other man responded to by raising his eyebrows _even higher_ and tilting his head in a gesture that sighed, “really, Greg; _really_?” (Not screamed, because Mycroft was never loud: always soft, and quiet, and measured.)

“Yours,” his lover said, before his phone came flying through the air to miss his head by a half inch. “Remind work that you are on holiday,” Mycroft added archly, stepping back into the bathroom and shutting the door.

It did turn out to be work, but that was hardly surprising as the only other people who called or texted him were Mycroft, Sherlock (on bad days), his ex-wife (on good days), and his daughter (whenever her phone wasn’t confiscated, which it was this week.) Specifically, it was a message from Sally, joined by another one as he read the first, and then another.

 

Lestrade,

Sherlock is storming about in here, shouting that we’ve got the wrong perp for the school kid case. Tried to arrest him, but John insisted otherwise and is calming down. Request immediate assistance. Are you in office?

\- SD

 

Calming down didn’t work. Hyped up like squirrel on steroids. Request permission to tase.

\- SD

 

I AM TASING HIM RIGHT NOW IF U DONT COME OUT OF UR OFICE

 

 _Jesus Christ_ , was his first thought, quickly followed by, _fucking hell_. He dialed her number immediately, covering his forehead with a hand and wanting to smother himself with a pillow as the dial tone rung shrilly in his ears. He was still slightly hung-over, dammit. He deserved a day – a week, a year, even – off.

“Sally,” he said, when she picked up, “do _not_ tase him.”

“Lestrade, where are you?” He nearly dropped the phone to hear Sherlock’s irritated voice instead of Sally’s. It gave him enough of a shock that he spent five seconds pretending to be a still lake in the vain hope of regaining his temper before answering.

“Sherlock, why the bloody hell do you have Sally’s mobile? Also, why the bloody hell are you calling me at…” He couldn’t find a clock anywhere. “At this hour?”

“Noon?” Sherlock supplied, sounding less irritated and more intrigued. This was never a good sign. “Now, where would you be where you don’t have access to a clock…?”

“I’m on holiday,” he replied firmly, hoping to quash the consultant’s curiosity in the bud. (Which was perhaps the wrong metaphor, but there was a steadily growing headache developing behind his eyes, so fuck metaphors.) “What’s this about the school kid case? You can’t tell me we’ve booked the wrong guy; _you_ said he was guilty.”

“As touching as your faith in me is,” was the reply, in a voice that indicated Sherlock did not think his faith in the least bit touching. “Several sources of information have been recently brought to my attention.”

“Well, give us them, then.”

That set Sherlock off on a ten minute rant, unintelligible in some parts, stark raving mad in others, but at the end it came together in a solution and motive that was so simple and clear and clever it made Greg feel like an idiot for having missed it. The consultant was just wrapping up with his customary insulting of any and all Met staff, having yet to actually identify the real perp (he left it right to the last minute, just to be a dramatic ponce) when it happened. _It_ being that Sherlock re-realised that Greg was not, in fact, standing in front of him, and instead in some undisclosed location. “Your dolt of a Sergeant—” Sherlock ignored Greg’s muttered protest about calling Sally a dolt, because she wasn’t, really, just a bit quick to judge at times. “—refused to believe me, so I attempted then to contact _you_ , only to find you’ve gone away on… _Holiday_? In _March_?” The change in tone was abrupt, switching from deduction mode to, ‘Lestrade, what the hell are you doing?’ mode in an instant. Greg could hear John saying, “Sherlock, leave it,” wearily in the background, as Sherlock began mumbling under his breath, the already incoherent noise fading as the phone was evidently pulled away from him.

“Greg?” John’s voice was much louder now, but still exhausted. “Sorry. He’s lived on a diet of coffee and no sleep for the past three days.”

Despite it not being in any way, shape, or form all right, Greg replied, “S’alright. What was he talking about with the perp? I thought it was the teacher, isnit?”

The phone-line crackled with static as John yawned. “Evidently not. All I’ve heard is that it’s the… oh, Sherlock, snap out of it, for Christ’s sake… the groundskeeper, or something. Guy who did gardens.” Right, yes, that was definitely a headache, throbbing in time to the beat of his heart. “Anyway, mate, I’ll let you get back to your holiday – we’ll get Sergeant Donovan to tag him, don’t worry about it. Sherlock’s gonna crash in a couple— _oi!_ ”

Sally would have to get a new phone after this traumatic event. It was the victim in a torrid game of ‘pass the parcel.’ “John? You there?” 

“Norfolk!” Sherlock hissed triumphantly. Shite. He bit back on the automatic response of, “fuck off,” followed by hanging up, knowing it would just confirm the theory and stroke Sherlock’s ego, and decided to be deliberately unhelpful because _really_.

“Russia, actually.” Greg heard the shower turn off – when the hell was it turned _on_ , because he’d wanted to take a shower with Mycroft, and god-fucking-dammit Sherlock – and bashed his head lightly against the pillow a couple of times. It, unfortunately, did not get rid of the headache, nor did it rend him unconscious. 

Sherlock gave an actual laugh. It wasn’t mirthful, though, so it was not so much a laugh as a disgusted exhale of breath that was slightly fluttery at the end. John, who had been repeating, “Sherlock,” in varying tones of impatience (and genuine sadness, like he was some sort of kicked puppy,) fell silent. Greg hoped he hadn’t offed himself, or something. He liked John. “A poor attempt to throw me off the scent, Lestrade.” He would explain to Sherlock the concept of sarcasm and irony at some point. But it _was_ fun when Sherlock took him seriously, like he was now. And by fun he meant irritating to the point of inducing him to slam his head against a desk or a wall or any other hard surface. Was that what fun meant, now? Sherlock was continuing, his voice lit with vicious delight at having solved this mystery, “You and Mycroft are in Norfolk. How upset were you… no… how upset was _he_ when you insisted on going?” He didn’t give Greg a chance to answer, ploughing on with an almost frenzied intensity and speed, the words practically flying from the phone, “Oh, _fan_ tastic, you’re going to meet our mother, oh, this is going to be truly entertaining, presumably she hasn’t come up yet, still engaged somewhere, she’s always like that, you two will be highly amusing together, ha! An excellent joke, my brother taking _you_ up to Norfolk, oh, _do_ send my regards to _Mummy—_ ”

That was about the extent of what Greg heard before he hung up. He pressed the cool phone against his forehead, closing his eyes and just letting the blessed silence wash over him. Mycroft stuck his head in for a moment, saw him doing that, and retreated again. He didn’t come out until he was fully dressed. Well, sans ruined (missing two buttons, at least) waistcoat and jacket, which Greg was pretty sure they’d left downstairs. Greg lifted his arm from where it had been lying across his face to peer at his lover, watching him fasten the cuffs of his shirt.

“How is my brother?” the elder Holmes enquired, voice mild. Greg considered what to say, before giving in to an irritated and exhausted sigh.

“Horribly intelligent. Horrible sort of just in general. He stole Sally’s phone to… I dunno, annoy me. John reckons he’s not slept for three days, but I think a bit longer. He was manic.”

Mycroft gave a non-committal hum. Greg hadn’t yet worked out what those meant, but Mycroft gave a lot of them whenever they talked about Sherlock. “He has always been… quite focused.” Greg snorted.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” he muttered, sitting up in bed and ruffling his hair, still mildly annoyed at the reminder of work. Especially _that_ case. Oh, Christ, he had to tell his lover… “Er, also, I think he might have outed us to… basically the whole of the Yard. And John.”

“Was this a secret?”

“Well, not really, but I wasn’t going to stick pamphlets under everyone’s windscreen, you know?” He scratched at the back of his neck idly. The rain was still beating against the windowpanes, remaining at a steady downpour. It hadn’t been that bad on the way up, probably it came from the coast, or it was one of those mysterious, sent from the heavens type that were so common. “They’ll probably want to meet you, at some point,” he added, grinning faintly despite his stomach swooping as if he were... well, in love, which he _was_ but... “Reckon you’d be stuck with me for good, then.” Fuck. Mycroft wasn’t drunk now, Greg couldn’t go around being as obvious as he was being, what happened to leaving it until they got back to London— 

“It would rather be the other way around, I imagine.” The reply was light, idle; nothing indicated that Mycroft was at all aware of how stupidly forward he was being. Good. No, awful. No, no, _good._

 

\---

 

In the true spirit of the trip, Greg then retreated to the bathroom. This time, however, he didn’t spend twenty minutes having an anxiety attack, and instead, sensibly, had a hot shower instead. The bedroom was empty when he’d finished, padding out of the bathroom while toweling his hair off. Now, to find and salvage clothing. That was one of the downfalls of drunken sex. The other, more obvious one, being he couldn’t remember half of it, but knew it had probably been quite excellent (or bloody shocking; drunk sex could go either way.) The shirt was literally beyond repair; someone had done an Incredible Hulk on it, shredding the poor garment to pieces. Well, okay, there were four buttons missing, one large tear in the fabric across the back and another down the side. He’d never liked the shirt, anyway; too stiff and starchy. Trousers were all right, though, so he slipped them on in lieu of clean clothing.

Then he realised he had no idea where he was in the house. Christ almighty. _The sod better get back here soon,_ he thought, dismayed by the thought of wandering around the house half-naked. Oh, God, he might bump into Barrymore. Shirtless. He supposed if he wrapped the sheet around him… As he was tugging at the sheet, trying to determine whether or not this plan would work, something the same shade of white slid off the bed. It was, rather beautifully, a perfectly intact shirt. (He made a mental note to never think of Mycroft as a sod again, lovely man that he was.) He would still have to find the guest room… wherever it was… but at least now he was decently covered. Where his shoes had disappeared to, though, he had no idea.

It took only twenty minutes this time for Greg to find his way back to the main staircase, which, despite not being the place he’d actually wanted to go, was a pretty decent accomplishment. He was rubbing the back of his neck and trying to visualise the path they’d taken yesterday – was it left, left, right, or right, right, left, or was it actually straight, right, left – when he heard voices below. Feeling a bit like Poirot (and wondering which fictional character he’d relate to next on this trip) he kept close to the inside wall, slinking closer to the top stair while trying to not be seen.

“... talk regardless, Mummy.” Mummy? _He is never going to live this down_ , Greg thought, amused. Another, less amusing thought quickly followed: _oh, shit, his mother’s here and I’m hardly dressed. Fuck._ He started to pull away, but was stopped by the cold, crisp enunciation of a woman’s – _Mummy’s_ – voice, which rang clearly through the foyer.

“Your reckless disregard for propriety certainly does nothing to help matters. It’s past noon, already; only those with weak character stay in bed past eight.” A pause, before her tone shifted slightly, to one that he’d only ever heard from Sherlock: vicious satisfaction. “What number is this, hmm? Five?”

“Three.” Mycroft suddenly sounded very stiff, almost defensive. Greg had never heard him use a tone like that before, which the detective would later use to justify why he remained frozen in place.

“That you’ve brought home, at least.” The reply was dismissive, and he was beginning to slowly work out what they were arguing about. If you could call this icy exchange arguing: his usually involved a lot more shouting and swearing.

“That you’ve frightened away.” There was a pause, or some conversation he couldn’t hear, before Mycroft snapped, with cold fury, “ _No_. Don’t you dare say that. I will not let your...” His voice became too hushed for Greg to hear, continuing on for several moments in that low, angry tone.

“My bitterness?” Mummy’s voice echoed with disgust. “My...” The conversation faded out of earshot again and, despite lingering there in the hopes of picking it up, nothing more was forthcoming. What he had heard was giving him serious pause for thought. 

Blunt, Mycroft had said. Unafraid to speak her mind, even to her son, it seemed. What they were talking about, Greg could only guess at, but if the house brought out the human side of Mycroft (such as it was) then his mother appeared to bring out… well, a pretty terrifying and new side, from the sounds of it. He’d never heard Mycroft so angry before, not even during some of their more heated shouting matches. (In which Greg shouted and Mycroft walked out when it was clear diplomacy wouldn’t work, and relations were becoming more strained as communication, in Mycroft’s words, “broke down.”) It was human, certainly, but… not the most desirable form of humanity, not one he’d ever wanted his boyfriend to experience. Which was a silly goal when he thought about it, because of course Mycroft got angry, it was part of the whole being alive and interacting with other people thing; just, not with family. Not like Greg. That was why he caved in so easily whenever his daughter got in a snit; he didn’t want her experiences of family to be like his – anger, all the time, which, over the years, had morphed into a cold, but active resentment by all parties. He was almost glad his sister wasn’t around to go through this – she would have found it unbearable – but most of the rage and hatred had been created, nurtured, even, after her… after she…

The guest room turned out to be right, straight, left down the corridors and the last door on the right. Someone had come in and finished his rushed job of unpacking the suitcases, and his clothes, when he found them, were hanging up in a wardrobe. A wardrobe whose door looked like a part of the wall, so it took him ages to find the bleeding thing. Pride and Prejudice, Poirot, James Bond… what next? Whatever else this trip was – exhausting, exhilarating, lovely, terrifying – it was, above all, very amusing.

His nicest clothing wasn’t a suit, but it _had_ been bought by Mycroft and was therefore ridiculously, embarrassingly expensive. Unsurprisingly, he never much got the opportunity to wear the green, soft-as-anything jumper, but it was still warm and comfortable, as if were much loved. After agonising for about point three of a second, he also put on a pair of black jeans, and spent five minutes trying to relive his adolescence by messing with his hair in the mirror, lamenting that whoever packed his bag hadn’t foreseen the need to put hair gel in there. About twenty minutes had passed since he’d stumbled upon that painfully awkward argument, so he figured he could come down and convincingly pretend he’d heard nothing.

It turned out that he didn’t even need to playact – the two were making amiable small talk about the weather. Yes, Mycroft actually did legitimately make the, “isn’t it a fine day,” kind of small talk. The first time he’d broken into Greg’s office – well, it was long story, which involved booking a coked-off-his-tit Sherlock, secret service guys in suits and dark sunglasses coming to wipe the charge completely, and Greg returning to his office to find a neatly dressed, unassuming man idly twirling about an umbrella, looking for all the world like he’d stepped right out of the old Avengers telly series. The first thing he’d said, instead of explaining why he was there in the first place, had been, “Lovely day outside, Detective Inspector,” quickly followed by a perfectly cordial smile at Greg’s utter bewilderment and a colder command, “Sit down, won’t you.”

That hadn’t resulted in the best of first impressions – Greg having almost moved to do so before realising this stranger was ordering him around in his own office, and then beginning to angrily demand answers to a number of questions: who the hell are you, what the hell are you doing in my office, what the hell did you mean lovely, it’s raining, and why the hell shouldn’t I arrest you for breaking and entering? For all that he was an authority figure, authority had never brought out the best in him. But all that initial unpleasantness was pretty much well and truly behind them. The tension, the power play (well, as much as you could have any power play with a man who purported to be the British government) had mellowed: somewhat because of the passage of time, but mostly due to their connection in Sherlock.

Who, thank Christ, wasn’t here to be smugly knowing about everything; Greg didn’t think he could bear having Sherlock in even a five mile radius when he was on holiday. The man would find some murder or scandal and _he’d_ be dragged into it because of duties and principles and morals. Either that, or Sherlock would spend the entire trip making nasty (if true) comments about things Greg didn’t want anyone to know. Like, well, the sudden emotions he was experiencing; Sherlock would out those before he got the chance to be suave and romantic and do it properly. It was… he kind of liked the consultant, but at the same time knew (from experience) that he was a complete and utter berk, with serious foot-in-mouth syndrome. John had been good for him initially, and then very, very bad for him. Greg had no idea what the hell was going on with their, “Totally just friends, no homosexual subtext here,” thing – frankly, he didn’t care a jot whether or not they _were_ involved – but he wished Sherlock would stop trying to show off his intelligence by insulting everything, in what appeared to be some desperate gambit to… oh, he didn’t know. Get John to love and appreciate him, probably. You’d think it would do the exact bloody opposite, but, bizarrely, it seemed to actually be working on occasion. And then Sherlock would go over the top, and John would shout, and Sherlock would (pretend to) be coldly apathetic, and they wouldn’t talk for two weeks…

If that was passionate and undying love, Greg could live quite happily without it, thank-you-very-much. He and Mycroft argued, yeah, but never to the point of not talking for a fortnight. The argument they’d had before the trip was unprecedented – brought on by a deadly cocktail of sleepless nights, stressful situations, and severe misunderstandings.

Despite having heard her perfectly crisp tones only half an hour previously, Greg had, up until this point, only been theoretically aware of Mrs. Holmes, and was still under the subconscious impression that Mycroft and Sherlock had gone out into the world already fully formed. He was, therefore, very surprised upon entering the parlour – he needed to stop just outside the room for a moment to silently accept that the house had a parlour and that he was basically a heroine in a nineteenth century Regency novel – to see the silver-haired woman sitting in a leather, wing-backed chair. It was tilted just slightly to both allow for the conveyance of attention and indifference to the person in the chair adjoining it; when he reflected upon this later, it was pretty much the biggest warning sign for what happened next that he could think of.

“Darling,” Mycroft’s mother said, rather sharply, her ice grey eyes fixed on Greg, “who is this?”

Mycroft, who had changed into another black suit, looked torn between getting up and moving to him, or staying where he was. Eventually, he decided upon the latter, giving the introductions from where he was sitting and crossing one immaculately clad leg over the other. “Mummy —” oh, yes, he was going to be teased _mercilessly_ for that “— let me introduce my... partner, Gregory Lestrade. Greg, this is my mother, Annis Holmes.” Greg then gave the obligatory, “Lovely to meet you, ma’am,” but she made no move to get up so he could shake her hand, so he remained hovering practically in the doorway, feeling more and more awkward by the minute. He wasn’t sure exactly how these things were meant to go, but surely he should receive more of a response than a thin smile and then being totally blanked again in favour of Mycroft.

“Mycroft, dear, you didn’t tell me we’d have a guest.”

“It was rather last-minute,” Mycroft said, suddenly fascinated with the cut of his jacket.

“Still with that dreadful spontaneity, I see.” Annis had a disturbingly shark-like smile. Greg wasn’t sure if that was an insult or not, but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. “No matter, I suppose; what’s done is done.” Yeah, and if that was her life motto, Greg was the Prime Minister. Mycroft’s mum reminded him a bit of the Queen, which was creepy and also explained a lot of things. (Like why Mycroft was so fond of the actual Queen.) They both had that kind of regal, ‘most powerful person in the room’ air about them; but Annis was different in that she seemed to actively use this whereas the Queen was more a sort of doting grandmother figure, in a way. The subject of Greg being there seemed to be over – which was interesting, because he didn’t remember leaving the room and had, in fact, _not_. “It’s been far too long since your last visit,” she remarked. He was getting the impression that the way Holmeses communicated involved one of them making a statement, a series of sharp responses, and then, after a silence, them moving onto a new topic.

“Apologies,” Mycroft replied unapologetically, still looking intently at the cuff of his jacket as though it contained the codes to North Korea’s entire nuclear missile program. Bugger Pride and Prejudice; this was like being caught in an effing Oscar Wilde play. The Importance of Being Holmes. A Holmes of Incredible Importance? “Government work does keep one so terribly busy, you understand.”

“Quite.” There was silence. The rain beat on. The earth continued spinning on its axis. Greg continued feeling like an idiot. Somewhere, somehow, there were crimes being committed. In that moment, he felt as if he could sense – no, he was just bullshitting, as a result of being completely ignored by the other two occupants of the room, one of whom had been his boyfriend only an hour ago.

Positive, happy, optimistic – or, hang on, didn’t that mean the same as positive? Doubly positive, then. Yes. That had been his resolution at the beginning of the trip, and he was determined to persevere. Or, at least, attempt to, in the face of such frosty indifference. It was his Achilles’ heel, unfortunately. Silences, as well, were something he’d never liked all that much – to him a sign that something wasn’t right, that the pause in conversation meant he’d done something wrong. (In this case, it appeared that coming to Norfolk was that thing… no, he couldn’t let himself think that if he wanted to keep pretending everything was just dandy. Not pretending! No. Just… ensuring, yes.)

So, in an admittedly pathetic attempt to break the silence and restore his own confidence, he began, harnessing all his ‘face of the Met’ charm, “You’ve got a lovely estate, Mrs. Holmes.”

Okay, fuck, that didn’t go down well. Annis didn’t look at all taken aback by his comment, merely raised a single, deadly eyebrow and replied coolly, “I’m aware.”

While Annis was not stunned, Greg was. He didn’t know what he’d expected; stupidly, not an older, female version who may have had Mycroft’s features, but had Sherlock’s manners. He was about to shoot back at her some sarcastic jibe about said lack of manners, automatically switching to his first defense, when Mycroft cut in calmly.

“It’s been in the family since the early sixteen hundreds – nearly every member of the family has, in some way, made an impression on it.”

“Really?” Greg followed his example of pretending his mother wasn’t utterly rude. “Including you?” He grinned when Mycroft inclined his head. “You’ll have to show me it tomorrow.” 

“Yes,” surprisingly, it was Annis who voiced this virtually eager affirmation. “Mycroft, you must take… Gregson—” oh, what the fucking _hell_ “—out for a tour of the property.”

“I find myself doubting the wisdom of such a course of action, mother.” He was again examining something intently – this time, his bespoke handkerchief, twirling it slowly round and round with both hands.

“I wasn’t aware it was a matter up for discussion,” she replied, cool smile firmly in place.

“It’s raining.”

“When the rain stops, then.”

“Projections have indicated that it might rain for the rest of the week.”

“Take an umbrella. You _will_ show him the estate; I see no point in him making such a long journey all this way for nothing.”

Greg considered mentioning that it had been to meet her, but held back. Mycroft pursed his lips, still gazing at the handkerchief, but he said only, “As you wish,” before falling silent. Back to the fucking silence again. Except this time Annis had her gaze fixed on Greg, silently evaluating him in that unnerving way her sons did. Her gaze was somehow _worse_ than Sherlock’s or Mycroft’s had ever been; more penetrating, more shrewd, and a thousand times more contemptuous and dismissive.

This scrutiny only lasted for about a minute before he was saved by Barrymore, but he was convinced that she was able to stare right into his soul and, from the looks of it, was unimpressed with what she saw. Well, fuck her, it was Greg's soul, and he could tarnish as much of it as he liked – who was she to judge anyway? He bet the Holmes family had a veritable graveyard of buried secrets, starting with the undeniable fact that their youngest son was, had been a drug addict. You never really got over it, in truth, for all the hype made about rehab and 'total recovery.'

Barrymore entered the room, saw Greg hovering near the door and being skewered by Mummy’s gaze, and politely cleared his throat. “Apologies, my lady; I've come to inform you that lunch is now ready to be served, but it, of course, waits upon your convenience.”

“Now will be satisfactory,” she intoned, eyes flicking away from Greg. His knees nearly buckled, before he remembered he wasn't Jane Bennet, and was instead a middle-aged policeman who occasionally chased and tackled serial killers. This affirmation didn't help as much as it perhaps should have. “Come, Mycroft...” Her son escorted her out of the room, shooting an apologetic glance back at ( _a fine, fine, totally fine with it, nope, loved being brushed off in favour of mummy, favourite new pastime_ ) Greg. 

 

\---

 

Lunch should have been quiet, as Greg was busy trying to drown himself in a cup of tea, and Mycroft was occupied with not eating and looking faintly mortified. But Lady Holmes (dear god she had a peerage, who the fuck outside of the royal family was even called Lady now) had seen fit to offer her opinion on pretty much every subject. 

“The current government is a disgrace – the cabinet’s combined IQ is catastrophically low. The last time this happened, the country was in the middle of World War II. Where was this David Cameron educated? Eton? Their standards were not so lax when your father went there; now it seems they’ll let anyone in, regardless of who their family is. Have you heard his stance on education, Mycroft? Appalling. No wonder the illiteracy rate is higher than it has ever been. What did he study at Oxford, darling? Didn’t he meet that ghastly Boris Johnson there – do not even mention his name to me. The man is so repugnant. The economy is in absolute turmoil, and the government is falling apart at the seams. The only decent thing they have done is to separate from the EU – I must say, the Greeks have been terribly dim-witted with their own economy. Really, such debt! It’s unprecedented. Next thing you know, I’ll have to consider investing in _Australia_ : such a backwards little country. Their only enviable quality is the state of their economy. It’s a good thing that America’s wings were clipped – oh, dear, _have_ you seen the Republicans candidates. Hideous. Conservative parties were never so disorganised when I was young. Am I to put my faith in the Labor party, now? The _state_ of the country, Mycroft, really, it’s too distressing…”

It went on and on until he excused himself at the same time as she declared her intention to walk out in the garden. The rain had hardly faltered, as Mycroft pointed out with an undercurrent of irritation, but she was undeterred. Greg wasn’t sure if he wanted her to catch her death, but, after five minutes out of her company, he decided he didn’t, if only because Mycroft would probably be upset. There would be a definite damper put on the holiday.

He re-entered the sitting room to find Mycroft had gone out on the stupid walk as well. The sitting room was different from the parlour, evidently, and they couldn’t have lunch in the parlor for some weird reason, and Christ what was that his mum had told him about eating with more than one knife or fork? Outside in, or inside out? Was that for more than one course, or did you have to eat different parts of your meal with a different utensil, or what? He wished he’d paid a bit more attention to her; he’d brushed her advice off on the basis that he thought he wouldn’t need to know that stuff, because what rich girl (or bloke; blokes were an option even when he was a teen) would go for a working class punk from Somerset? He still really didn’t know why Mycroft had decided that theirs would be a good coupling; surely there were a lot more suitable matches. Maybe he’d even reconsider now it was clear his mum didn’t approve of Greg at all, and probably never would. 

Barrymore, surprisingly, wasn’t out there in the pouring rain with Mycroft and Annis, and was instead checking his watch in a bored fashion while lingering outside what smelt like the kitchen. Greg was wandering the ground floor, peeking into room after room and feeling more and more quietly overwhelmed by it all. Talking to Barrymore couldn’t be duller than waiting for Mycroft to get back in, so he greeted the manservant with, “Not trying to stop Mrs. Holmes from catching her death?”

He looked somewhat amused. “Lady Holmes does as she pleases; there is nothing on Earth that can dissuade her from doing otherwise. Not even the weather.” 

Yeah, Greg could understand that. “You don’t have to tell me,” he said in his most coaxing tone, the one he used for police interrogations, “but what’s Lady Holmes like normally?”

The butler just smiled again, and said nothing. Okay, he hadn’t really been expecting much, but at least a polite deferral would be nice. He changed tack, aware that it probably wouldn’t work either.

“Reckon the rain’s gonna stop soon?”

“Hopefully.”

“Be bad if they caught cold.” There was a large window at the far end of the hall, which gave a view into the back garden. Looked like a rose garden, although currently it was a red, brown, and dark green blur, drops of water collecting on the glass and obscuring the view further. It was beautiful, he admitted; the whole house was beautiful, practically a work of art, but so cold and detached. He just couldn’t imagine growing up here. Greg would’ve hated it, even if it was wrapped up in such a pretty package. Well, he hadn’t much liked his childhood anyway, he supposed, so it might not have made much of a difference. You could be unhappy if you were poor or you were rich.

“Indeed. Lady Holmes does not usually suffer such ailments, thankfully; otherwise her walks in the garden would be quite disrupted.” Barrymore appeared to have that ability to say a lot of words that didn’t mean much at all, which revealed nothing new.

“Did Mycroft much?” A slight nod gave him more information than words had. His lover was so pale anyway that Greg had no trouble picturing him as a sickly kid. A wave of sympathy coursed through him, despite his earlier hurt at being passed over in favour of Annis. “I should go out and bring him in,” he murmured, staring at the window and out into the garden beyond.

“Do not be too concerned, Mr… apologies, is it Inspector Lestrade. I believe this might be them now – ah.” The last utterance was a soft sigh. He empathised. Mycroft had just entered through the door next to the window Greg had been looking out of. He was soaked through to the bone; Annis was more or less completely dry, having had the shelter of an umbrella, despite her continued insistence (even as they made their way inside) that she had wanted to feel the rain.

To her son, who was now using the hankie he’d been examining earlier, she said coldly, “I do not require you to coddle me, Mycroft.” It was probably because he looked like a drowned rat, but Greg felt suddenly quite protective of his boyfriend, and nearly stepped forward unconsciously before Barrymore beat him to it. Greg lingered near the kitchen door as Annis swept past with Barrymore in tow, the woman raking him up and down with another disapproving glance, and then moved to the drenched (and sniffling, oh bugger) Mycroft.

“Shall we keep a running tally of how many suits are ruined on this trip?” the bureaucrat asked, voice suspiciously neutral. “My tailor will be horrified.”

“Ah, it’s not all that bad,” he replied, plucking at the wet fabric on Mycroft’s upper arm. “Come on, we’ll hang it up and let it air for a bit, eh? Let’s get you out of it before you fall sick.” 

Although he smirked and made a muttered comment about Greg taking advantage of the situation – to which he responded with a grin and, “Of course!” – Mycroft didn’t provide any resistance to being led upstairs. His suits – he’d brought about five out of a collection of too-many-to-count, including the one he’d worn yesterday – were hanging up with Greg’s stuff in the guest bedroom. Greg insisted Mycroft get out of the suit and immediately into the shower; Mycroft, pushing him out of the bathroom, insisted he hang up the suit before it became crinkled and that he would get sick if they showered together. Greg did so, texted Sally with, _You ok? Txt me back re case_ , and then spent the rest of the time searching his case for a lighter, sliding it in with the cigarettes when he found one of those cheap Zippo ones (with British flag detailing, ha ha Mycroft) at the bottom.

Mycroft stepped out of the bathroom, already dressed in a very, _very_ nice tweed suit that Greg had never seen on him. He quirked an eyebrow when Greg gave him an appreciative once-over, rolling his eyes at the wolf whistle. 

“Oh, hardly.”

“Oh, totally.” He grinned, stepping forward to slide his arms around Mycroft’s waist and tug him in closer. They ended up practically pressed flush together, Mycroft looking slightly apprehensive at their proximity. “I’m not going to do anything, I just want to hug you.”

“I’ll sneeze on you.”

“God, no, that would be terrible,” he said sarcastically. “Love, I’ve got a kid; she sees it as her duty to sneeze on me whenever she’s sick. I’ve got the constitution of an ox.”

His boyfriend looked unconvinced, but changed the subject regardless. “How are you… feeling?” He said the word with thinly veiled disdain, but Greg recognised the effort to try and show he cared.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine.” Their closeness came back to bite Greg in the arse; Mycroft could tell even more easily that he wasn’t quite telling the whole truth. “Well, okay, I feel a bit like Eliza from _My Fair Lady_ ,” he admitted, a self-deprecating smile twisting onto his face.

“ _Pygmalion_ , to be strictly correct.”

“Aoooow.”

Mycroft looked pained. “Please let’s don’t make this into some kind of class warfare.”

“It’s how your mum thinks I talk normally,” Greg said, before dropping into a nasally: “The rine in spine sties minely in the pline.”

“Gregory.” It was pretty amazing how much feeling could be put into one word – in this case, hurt irritation with a dash of weariness.

“Kidding, kidding.” Except most likely not. No, he couldn’t judge her… just yet. She might be nicer when you got to know her. ( _Unlikely_ , said a small but vocal part of his brain, the one that had never failed him. He did his best to ignore it in this case.) Mycroft stepped out of the loose embrace; something in Greg’s chest tightened and wrenched unpleasantly. His lover sneezed, sighed, and then offered:

“Let me show you around the house. We didn’t quite get the chance yesterday.”

They spent several hours wandering around the house – progress was so slow because Greg had to quiz Mycroft on the purpose of each room, their histories, where they’d gotten all these paintings, and who was in each portrait. Art history was a subject Mycroft warmed to very quickly, especially of the landscapes. Greg was fairly certain some of these should be in the museum, rather than a private collection. They had everything from Raphael, to Monet, to Rolf Harris. He was willing to bet serious money that all of them were originals, too. With the family portraits, he was introduced to long dead and mostly unsmiling Holmeses. One of the few who did smirk at the painter was a fairly obese man, dressed in a Victorian era suit, and with an undeniable look in his eyes (even on canvas) that spoke of a razor sharp intellect.

“My namesake,” Mycroft said simply. “He was also quite involved in politics, as I recall. Died very young; he was only in his early fifties. Long before he could properly train the civil service of the time… it was something of a hobby of his. He believed it would take two hundred years.” Mycroft smirked and seemed about to make a comment about that, but relented. “It’s an questionable pronouncement,” he instead conceded. Greg had the impression that, in the short space of time that Mycroft (the living) had been in politics, he’d pretty much already trained the civil service.

 

\---

 

The time flew, though Greg was keenly aware of the unpleasant emotional brick in his chest, contracting at odd intervals when a scene or sentence from earlier flashed into his mind. He was left much more tight-lipped than normal as a result, and, even though he wanted to drape all over his boyfriend, refrained from acting too clingy.

Annis had apparently decided that the trip down from The Lakes had been extremely tiring, and she would not be joining them for dinner. Greg was silently thankful; he didn’t think he could take any more of her snide comments or her verbose opinions on the state of the world. Mycroft spent the entire meal sneezing and looking half-annoyed and half-miserable anyway. The food was nice, but Greg was already beginning to crave something Chinese or Indian; maybe he’d make a nice chicken curry when they got home, or order out for some Chinese… He didn’t really like roast dinners, to be honest, which was what they were having. He desperately wanted to cook; maybe he could convince Barrymore, or whoever made the meals, that he was a perfectly able chef and make something for dessert tomorrow. Something to look forward to, at least. A chance to get away from Annis for a bit, leave her to be with her son. Yeah, that’d be good.

 Despite the sort of hostile reception today, he was sure things would get better. They had to, didn’t they? Rock bottom, and all that. (The same small voice whispered that he hadn’t even _seen_ rock bottom yet, and shouldn’t get his hopes up. He told it to fuck off this time, before realising it was a part of his consciousness. Christ, he wanted a pint.) 

The sound of the rain – steady, comforting, and interspersed with sharp sneezes and impatient groans from Mycroft – lulled him to sleep, with the promise of better things to come. _The only problem was_ , he reflected, brought once more from the brink of sleep by a sneeze and a hacked curse in some Asiatic language; _how long would that take?_


	3. Things Can't Possibly Get Worse... Can They?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg hits rock-bottom. Or, at least, what he thinks is rock-bottom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for this two month hiatus. I've been working on this chapter for all that time, and it just hasn't been _right_ until a couple of days ago, whereupon I finish triumphantly and then trawled back through the whole piece to give it a sound edit. So, do please enjoy the agonised fruits of my labours.

The third day of their little holiday-cum-slice of hell was also the day his nightmares decided to reappear. Greg jolted himself awake, his hand already covering his mouth to muffle his harsh breathing and teeth biting down hard enough on his bottom lip that he could taste blood. The second time this happened, he whispered a string of curses against his palm and slid out of bed, because it was better than lying there and crying. It was still dark out as he put on yesterday’s clothes and made his silent way downstairs.

With a pot of tea (God forbid they have teabags anywhere like normal people) he slowly drove the horrific images – _too pale limbs splayed brokenly blood blood everywhere pale faces staring up at him white froth still clinging to her lips shouting screaming you were meant to protect her_ – from his mind. The golden, sweet smelling liquid swirled as he poured it into a china cup. He handled it delicately, aware that his monthly salary probably was not worth as much as this teacup. Or yearly, even.

The kitchen echoed with his too-loud sigh. _I should never have come_ , he thought, the truth of it a heavy weight in his chest, but his brain wasn’t content to leave it at that: _what a stupid fucking idea. You don’t think, you don’t ever think…_ He took a sip of the scalding tea, and buried his head in his hands, tugging harshly at his hair. _Man up, you miserable shit. Stop handling things like a fucking girl._ That was his dad’s voice, and Greg was bitterly amused at having thought like that for the first time in ages.

He did ‘man up’ after a while, giving up on the tea and pouring the rest of the cold liquid out into the sink. Sally hadn't texted back yet, which wasn't surprising as it was only half three in the morning and she'd've been bogged down in that case all of yesterday. Guilt at having left her to fix this fuck up pulled at his chest. He knew he could attribute most of his morose behaviour to the nightmares and the early hour, but it didn't do much to make him feel any better. He wanted to call Corrie, hear his daughter complain about school, how self-obsessed all the other girls were, how stupid the boys were, and how no one except her ever seemed to read... Even to call his ex-wife, Anne, and have her reassure him that he wasn't a complete failure in the same calm voice she'd used to convince him to quit drinking. Hell, Mycroft was only a short walk away; Greg could just go back upstairs and climb into bed with his boyfriend, even if he couldn't really tell him what was up.

He didn’t want to burden anyone with his problems. They weren't going to go away; he tried to do something to stop the dreams and the way they gnawed at him. Nothing _worked_. It was fine. He'd get over it in a few hours: wouldn’t even remember them by tomorrow. In the meantime, he just needed to find something to… to preoccupy himself with. The only reason he was so affected was that they'd taken him by surprise. He knew... the nightmare about the kids, in hindsight, should've been a warning, but for the past few months things had been fantastic, and he’d been _happy_ , and he stupidly thought the problem had just vanished into the ether. No, of course not. He was an idiot to think otherwise; it all came rushing back at the slightest hint of something that shook him, and he was just left with nothing but a hollow core and memories of his sister...

The not quite stifled sob was even louder than his previous sigh, reverberating around the vast room. Christ above. Five minutes, he just needed five minutes. Could he do that? There didn't appear to be much choice one way or another; he was helpless to stop himself from crying, even though he dug the heels of his palm into his eyes, painful white spots blooming behind his lids. It wasn’t a full on, weep-till-you’re-sick cry, but one of those ones where it was hard to breathe evenly and the tears were slow but they wouldn’t _stop_ and he felt so, so tired that it made him want to cry even more…

By the time it passed, Greg was left feeling exhausted. He rubbed at his stinging eyes, and returned to the guest room, only pausing to pull off his clothes before crawling back into the warm bed. _Miserable_ , his brain muttered as he curled in on himself. He just wanted to sleep.

Warm, slightly snuffly breath against his neck was all the warning he got before cooler arms slid around him. Mycroft didn't try to pull him in closer, which he might have pushed away from, so he was left being encircled by an uncharacteristically affectionate embrace and feeling confused, mildly resentful, and upset. There was a sleepy murmur against the outside of his ear: “You're cold.”

“Sorry,” he managed, trying to shift out of the hug. His chest was so fucking tight, he needed to get out and back to—

With another ill sniff, Mycroft woke up even more at his movements, unconsciously clinging tighter to the quietly panicking Greg. “What?” his lover demanded – _yes, see, someone loves you, it's not all bad, although would he really if he knew more about you, but doesn’t he know everything about you, why does he want you_. “Where are you going?”

He stopped himself. “Nowhere. Sorry,” he repeated.

“Stop saying that,” Mycroft grumbled.

“Sorry.”

A breathy huff of laughter. “Now you're being deliberate.”

After a few minutes’ consideration, Greg turned over to face his boyfriend and buried his face in the soft pyjama shirt Mycroft wore, breathing heavily and harshly into the fabric. Even had he not been a Holmes, it was pretty obvious now to Mycroft that something was up. Greg knew. But he could just... pretend, right? It might not solve anything, but it would delay talking about it.

Mycroft's mouth opened and closed several times, the action audible in the silent room. He finally asked softly, “What is the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Will you not tell even me?” Greg recognised the emotional blackmail, exhaling wearily.

“Not right now.” Mycroft seemed, if not happy, at least momentarily placated with his answer, but Greg couldn't stop himself from blurting out, “Do you care?”

“It seems counter-productive to have asked otherwise.”

He supposed that was as warm an answer as he'd ever get. Greg snorted; they deserved each other.

Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t get back to sleep, and neither, it seemed, could Mycroft. After a while of that, Greg pushed back slightly from his chest, nearly dislodging the hand that had nestled in his hair at some point, and said, “Talk to me?”

“About?”

“I, just… anything. How was Cornwall? It’s nice, isnit?”

“I’m sure the surrounding area must be picturesque, but, as I spent all of my time indoors, I was not able to form an opinion on the landscape.” There was a long pause, before Mycroft offered to recite _Hamlet_ , if Greg was so intent on hearing his voice. Greg declined.

“Not really in the mood for Hamlet.”

“No, indeed. I apologise; on reflection, it was a poor choice.”

“Tell me,” Greg began quickly, trying to avoid another silence and answer one of the questions that had been plaguing him for a while. “You ever brought any other boyfriends... girlfriends, even, here?” The hand in his hair tightened briefly. Greg suddenly wished he weren't such a curious, tactless arsehole sometimes. (He blamed Sherlock almost completely.)

Mycroft's reply was quiet. “Two. Boyfriends, just boyfriends. Never...” There were so many possible endings for that, some Greg didn't even want to think of: _never girls, never normal, never interested in the other sex, never what my mother wanted._ Mycroft may have said nothing, but his silence screamed.

“Hey.” Greg struggled upward, tentatively feeling for Mycroft's face. His skin was soft and warm beneath Greg's hand, as the DI had his usual internal battle with words. “It's alright, you don't have to... you know, whatever. It's fine. You're fine.” His lover ducked down, brushing his chin and then lips against the top of Greg's head. _You’re perfect_ , he thought fiercely, _and I love you and your mum can go rot._

“Regardless,” Mycroft continued minutes later, voice steadier than when he'd trailed off, “neither was at all prepared, or able to correctly handle, my mother's... flair.” Greg snorted – saying Annis had ‘flair’ was like calling an active volcano ‘quite hot.’ “The first one lasted, at a rough estimate, forty minutes before he, ah, fainted. Our relationship never really progressed beyond that, for which I'm thankful. The other was decidedly less gracious. He spent two hours in her presence, then flew into a truly remarkable screaming fit at her, me, and most of the staff, and stormed out.”

“Tell me he wasn't a muscle-bound rugby player.”

“He was indeed a muscle-bound rugby player. Named Marcus.”

“How'd I know you'd let some beefed-up idiot treat you like crap?”

“He had actually been quite amiable for the duration of our relationship. Of course,” he added in a sullen mutter, “Mother isn't content meeting someone without pushing their buttons to see how they work, and how much it takes to break them, so there we have it.”

“Mmm, but would you have her any other way?”

“It is difficult to answer. I suppose, from an objective viewpoint, one must... Ah, I see. That was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?”

He grinned and shifted in Mycroft's grip, pressing his cheek up against the smooth fabric of his top and rubbing lightly. “A bit, but you can tell me if you want.”

“I'd rather not. She has a terrible habit of lurking where she is not wanted.”

“Which means she's outside the door listening to every word we say?”

“There is a distinct possibility.”

“Your family is nuts,” Greg informed him, “and you know it, and you _wouldn't_ have it another way.”

“There may be some element of truth to your statement.” Conversation petered out for a while and they lingered in silence that was more comfortable now, the only sounds the crinkle of fabric, or a brief change in breathing.

“If you consider it,” Mycroft said musingly, almost but not quite ruining the mood, “you're a paragon of patience compared to my exes. Relatively, you're doing quite well.”

He reached up, put his hand across his boyfriend’s mouth, and said, “Shh.”

“Remove your hand,” was the muffled reply. “Or I shall bite it.”

He called the bluff with a snorted, “You wouldn’t.” Two seconds later, he found out, through a judicious application of teeth to his thumb, that it wasn’t a bluff. He batted at Mycroft with a half-hearted irritation, pressed his face up against his chest, and drifted off.

When he next woke up, the rain had disappeared – as had Mycroft. There was no sign of life upstairs, and no sign of him specifically downstairs. Instead, Greg found Annis, who glanced up from a copy of the _Times_ , looking irritated at his intrusion to the parlour. _Fuck_ , he thought, barely biting back the impulse to voice it. _Keep it quick, keep it polite. She’s only as nasty as Sherlock. On a bad day, on drugs, with a sudden amplified vicious streak. It’s fine, you’re a paragon of patience, a rock, a still and calm lake, a… a tree – whatever. Prepared. You’re prepared._

“Sorry,” he said, with a politeness that made his teeth ache. “I was just wondering where Mycroft was.”

“God knows,” she replied coldly, turning her attention back to the newspaper. “Do I look as if I keep track of my son’s every move?”

_Count – to – ten._

“Sorry to bother you, then.” Before he could make his escape, however, she called him back, piercing grey eyes fixed on his.

“It is somewhat fortuitous that I should catch you unattached to my son’s hip.” _Fuck_ , he thought again, smile forced.

“Is it.”

“I am not in the habit of repeating myself.” She paused to fold the newspaper. Every second that passed wreaked havoc on Greg’s nerves; he hadn’t even known he _had_ nerves. “I must admit some curiosity as to why you and Mycroft are… involved.”

“I suppose you’ll have to ask him,” he said, smile slipping slightly.

“I am asking _you_.”

“Hmm, see, I really don’t think it’s any of your concern.”

Annis smiled at that – like the grin of a shark that had just scented blood in the water. “That is where you are wrong. I am _very_ concerned; Mycroft has never had good taste in choosing his little flings.”

_You can’t shout at his mother. Probably._

“We’re living together. I wouldn’t really call it a fling.”

“Wouldn’t you? A live-in. How quaint. I suppose you think yourself quite in love with him.” The smile warped into a faint sneer when he started. “Come now, Geoffrey, it is obvious to anyone with eyes – as is how unsuitable you are for him.”

“It’s Greg,” he snapped, pretty much beyond clinging to his pretensions of unaffected politeness. “And no, funnily enough, I don’t think I’m unsuited to him.”

“You _are_ an idiot, then.”

 _You definitely can’t_ punch _his mother, either; she’s about seventy, for fuck’s sake._

Annis was continuing, her smile positively Cheshire. “You’re uneducated, underpaid, and utterly out-classed. You know it as well as I. What could you possibly offer him?”

“You’re overbearing, rude, and unable to accept that anyone could possibly be good enough for your son,” Greg shot back. “How can he _stand_ you?”

Her smile evaporated with alarming speed, face twisting instead into an expression that was equal parts disdain and fury. “You remind me quite a bit of my late husband,” said she. The apparent non sequitur almost blind-sided him. “Yes, the similarities are remarkable: he was a fool, a drunkard, and I loathed him.”

“Well, that explains a lot,” he retorted. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“I do not excuse you in the slightest.”

Greg was unable to reply, as he had, by that point, shut the door between them. He stayed outside the room for a moment, trying to calm the anger that clawed at his throat. Of course, Mycroft chose to reappear the moment Greg was still trying to ‘find his center’ – really, fuck this meditational bullshit, it did fucking nothing to help. Mycroft took one look at Greg – whose hand still gripping the doorknob with excessive force – and frowned.

“Don’t,” Greg said softly. With effort, he unclenched his hand and stepped away from the door.

“I was not going to say anything,” was the equally quiet protest. Mycroft’s eyes flicked from the parlour door to Greg, before he said, “But I do wish you would not—”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he repeated, through clenched teeth.

Mycroft gave a little moue of distaste, but subsided. “Come eat,” he invited, curtly. “Then, weather permitting, we’ll go for a walk.”

 

\---

 

The weather was permitting, but only just. Although the rain had stopped, it was cold as fuck outside. There was nothing in the world Greg hated more than being cold – a dislike brought on by a number of freezing nights on stake-out, and several times falling into the Thames, all of them during winter.

To put it lightly, the grounds of this place were fucking massive. As far as Greg could tell – stumbling beside Mycroft as he was, trying to basically look at everything at once – it was divided into a few sections. There was the rose garden that he’d seen yesterday, filled with a warm selection of colours from palest white to darkest red. He was unsurprised to find it was mostly Annis’ hobby, as he’d pricked his finger by accident on one of the more lovely in the garden, and joked with an uncomprehending Mycroft about the sorceress putting him into a deep sleep.

Around the front of the house, where he’d parked the now missing car was a circular, gravel drive-way. It was surrounded on both sides by grass, and mud, and other bits of nature he couldn’t identify. Greg peered out, trying to find the edge of the property, but couldn’t – one, because it was too big, and two, because there was a hill obstructing the view on the right, and a weeping willow blocking it on the left.

Mycroft led him beyond the willow, actually managing a smile when Greg let out a laugh at the field of poppies and then slid his arms around his boyfriend’s waist, pulling Mycroft back into him.

“They’re lovely,” he grinned, nosing the back of Mycroft’s ear.

“Must I quote Keats at you again?” he replied dryly, but added, more warmly, “I’m pleased you like them. I know mother suggested the tour to show off, but I did want you to see… this.”

“Fair enough, though, eh? If I had a whopping great house like this I'd wanna show it off, too.”

Mycroft twisted around in the embrace. Cool blue eyes lingered on him, before their owner replied quietly, “No, you wouldn't. You would be your graciously humble self.” A wan smile twitched onto his face. “And frustratingly sincere, as ever. I doubt... Would you like living here?” The question was somewhat out of the blue, and it left Greg frowning as he tried to come up with an answer both true and diplomatic.

“It’s a nice place,” he started. Mycroft's eyebrows flickered up.

“A no, then."

“No!” Greg protested automatically. “Well... I mean, it'd be nice for, you know, holidays and the lark.”

“Greg,” Mycroft practically sighed his name. “No is a perfectly acceptable answer.”

Even so, he still felt bloody guilty about it. “I just... It's a bit big, for me.”

“I know.”

“Not that it's not nice—”

“I know,” Mycroft repeated, drawing him into a kiss that he was powerless to resist, that stopped him from offering any other weak platitudes. It was slow, measured, never moving beyond the press of lips, but, when they parted, he was breathing heavily. The pad of a thumb trailed below his nose, sliding down his bottom lip and parting his mouth slightly.

“So,” Greg said, clearing his throat, “are you going to show me your stables, or are we going to go back inside to be loudly indecent upstairs?”

The thumb slid off, fingers curling to cup his chin. “Tempting.” It was released suddenly, as Mycroft dropped his arm. “But we're not putting off the grand tour to give my mother an apoplectic fit.”

“Ah,” he sighed, voice still pitched low and rough. “Pity.”

They travelled back to the other side of the house – there was nothing beyond the field of poppies, just a row of trees surrounding the estate. Mycroft grimaced at the hill, but they did make it over, even if he complained about his ‘fragile condition.’ To be fair, he was sneezing quite a bit, but Greg still thought he was being over the top about it. The top of what Mycroft called a mountain, and what Greg was sure was simply a gently inclining slope provided them an excellent view of that side of the house, and bugger him sideways if that wasn’t a lake a la Pemberley. It was at that point, after he snickered about Colin Firth in his wet shirt with a riding crop, that Greg made a horrific discovery, one that would significantly impact him for the rest of his life. Mycroft had never seen the BBC series of Pride and Prejudice. It was unthinkable.

“You have not lived,” Greg declared, as they made their way down an equally as gentle incline towards the lake.

“No,” Mycroft corrected, “I have not seen the BBC series.”

“It’s pretty much the same thing.”

“Mr. Darcy did not recklessly throw himself in lakes here and there in the novel.”

Greg sighed sadly. “That’s not the point. You’ve never seen Colin Firth in a wet shirt. Coming out of the lake, all dripping and handsome.”

“I do not even know who Colin Firth is. Do you imagine I have time for frivolous activities like watching television?”

“Ah, see, I know you do, ‘cos Corrie’s roped you into watching West Wing. Can’t fool me with that ‘frivolous activities’ excuse.”

“West Wing is less a television series, and more a reflection on my day to day business. The show is a well-crafted slice of life. Besides, I am given little choice in the matter; I could hardly refuse her. She is extremely crafty and enterprising – such talent deserves a reward.”

“Right,” Greg decided, “when we get home again, I’m stealing you for a weekend, and we’ll watch the series, and I’ll cry when they get together in the end, and it’ll be good, and you’ll love it. I think I deserve a weekend, anyways,” he added at the faintly reluctant look on his lover’s face.

“It’s not a matter of what one deserves, but what one can spare… Fine,” he sighed, rolling his eyes at Greg’s pleading look, complete with big, wide eyes and a pout, “yes, we may have a weekend.”

They reached the lake when it occurred to Greg in another horrified epiphany – “You’ve never seen Sense and Sensibility, have you?”

“As a general rule, you can name anything produced after the 1940s, not directed by Stanley Kubrick, or not featuring Helen Mirren, and I have not seen it. I have, however, read the novel, which I already know to be infinitely superior.”

“The novel doesn’t have a wet Alan Rickman striding in to save his lady love from perishing in a storm…”

“No, but it does have wit and class.”

“Nor Hugh Grant.”

“You are ridiculous,” he was informed matter-of-factly. “If you push me into the lake, I shall never forgive you, I shall catch my death, _and_ it will be a slight upon the original.”

“You’d have to take your jacket and waistcoat off to truly capture Colin Firth.” He grinned at the sour look on Mycroft’s face at such a proposal in the face of such cold weather. “Don’t worry, I still think you’re dashingly handsome.”

“Good, for I am not doing either. I would freeze to death before I even make it in.” All the while they’d been talking, Mycroft had also been leading him around the edge of the lake. It was brown, but so was pretty much every lake in the UK, and filled with honest-to-God lily pads and reeds. Looked straight out of the Princess and the Frog, or any other tale detailing an impressionistic and idealist view of what one should look like. The entire site was encompassed by a loose ring of trees that he was still sort of expecting Mr Darcy to come striding out from behind, and there was one on the far side of the lake that looked almost as if it had a…

Okay, his eyes had to be screwing with him. Either that, or he’d stepped through a fairy’s ring – he glanced back to check there were no rings of mushrooms anywhere.

“Mycroft, that’s a full on room,” he pointed out to a nonplussed Holmes. “Built onto a tree. You’re not hiding wings under all that clothing, are you? I’ll feel like an idiot if you turn out to be an elf price or something…” At his utterly blank look, Greg had to grin again. “Did you read _any_ fairy-tales as a kid?”

“I hardly see what my lack of folklore knowledge has to do with my room. How on earth would I hide wings…?”

“Fairy magic,” Greg replied, and, before Mycroft could do anything but look even more bewildered, tugged him closer to the room. “You built it?”

“Designed it, and had it built,” he corrected absently, eyebrows still furrowed in thought. “Even with magic it would still be an untenable manner in which to hide them. Wouldn’t they itch?”

“Are you getting hung up on the whole fairy thing while you have a literal tree-house?” Greg demanded playfully, then made the mistake of joking, “Is it bigger on the inside?”

“How could it be bigger on the inside? Such a feat is not an engineering possibility.”

Right, of course Mycroft hadn’t seen Doctor Who. That would be too normal.

The tree-house was sort of like a walled-in, hexagonal pergola – a bit like a yurt, if a yurt was built into the side of a large oak tree. It looked as if it were made of oak, too – the whole thing comprised of natural, light brown timbers. It was really quite startlingly pretty, though he didn’t know why you’d need it. Maybe that was the point.

Inside, there was a bench running along every wall in the building, forming an internal hexagon that was broken only at the door. Apart from that, several stacks of books – one of them had a book on top with a knife sticking through it that he suspected may have been Sherlock’s doing – and a couple of cushions, the space was virtually empty. It wasn’t, however, impersonal, unlike so many of Mycroft’s offices and even his flat to some extent.

Mycroft stepped in after him, and made a face at the blue walls. They were the same, ocean blue as in his bedroom, Greg noted idly. “Dreadful,” Mycroft muttered, gaze sweeping across the entirety of the room. He picked up the stabbed book, flipping it around to read the cover before placing it back the right way up. “ _Medea_ ,” he told Greg. “I must have only been ten to still be reading that.”

“Somebody take offense to it?”

“No, no; I believe Sherlock was attempting to recreate the scene where she kills her sons, with him as the criminal and I as the two victims. Needless to say, I did not particularly wish to be stabbed.” He glanced around the room once more, shaking his head. “This is maudlin. Come, let’s go.”

“It’s not maudlin,” Greg protested, even as he followed Mycroft back out into the dreary, patchy sunlight. “It’s your childhood.”

“Precisely.” His voice always went quietly tight whenever Greg tried to ask him about what his childhood was like, and it did so now. “There’s nothing to be gained through dwelling on it.” Yeah, Greg’d heard that phrase too many times to count.

“You gotta reflect on things sometimes, though,” he replied, ducking under a low-hanging tree branch. Mycroft was walking almost too fast for him to catch up. “Wait up, will you? Not all of us have lovely long legs.”

He slowed, slightly, but said, “Unless we walk quickly, we’ll be drenched – look at the sky.” The sky was being covered by a cloud that was virtually _black_.

“Jesus Christ,” Greg muttered, falling into step beside Mycroft in the same manner a fox might if it attempted to walk alongside a giraffe. “When’d that happen?” Mycroft gave an elegant shrug of one shoulder. “What time’s it, anyways?”

“A little after two in the afternoon.”

“Lunch, tea, relax?” Greg asked idly, sliding his hand down to twine his fingers around Mycroft’s own. It made him slow up even more, so Greg wasn’t practically jogging next to him. He gave Greg an odd look, but didn’t pull away.

“Lunch, tea, phone calls,” he replied. “I need to check on something.”

“You know this is meant to be a holiday, yeah?”

“Be that as it may, the world will not suddenly stop turning simply because I am in Norfolk.”

“Bet you could make it if you wanted. So, lunch, tea, phone calls… _then_ relax?”

“It’s doubtful,” he muttered.

“ _Try?_ ”

Mycroft made a faintly disdainful noise, but said nothing else about it, staring pensively up at the dark black cloud that was slowly but surely edging across the sky.

“Might start raining before we even get back,” Greg offered with cheery pessimism.

“It’s not going to rain,” he replied, but picked up the pace.

“You always say that and then it always does.”

Mycroft gave him a sharp glance, and then said, “Oh, go away, Margaret.” Greg had to laugh.

 

\---

 

If Greg had been labouring under the delusion that things were only going to get better, sod’s law dictated they now had to become even worse.

It started with dinner.

Well, actually, no, that wasn’t right: it started before dinner and escalated during the meal. (It had actually started the moment he’d met her but that was entirely beside the point.) Greg was doing his best to be the greatest, most gracious, and utterly unflappable boyfriend there ever could be… by physically avoiding Annis. It seemed to be the only way to prevent her from making some kind of sharp comment. (His favourite to date was a bored, “Oh, are you _still_ here?”) Unfortunately, that also meant not seeing Mycroft, who was evidently trying to be the greatest _son_ , rather than, you know, a supportive partner.

So, Greg found himself sitting out on the back porch, trying to light a smoke in the damp air and generally being as broodingly moody as one of the young protagonists in a period telly serial from the 90s. (He couldn’t _actually_ pull off Colin Firth, but he was making a damn good crack at it.)

He was actually feeling quite good about himself – the nicotine helped – when he heard the unmistakably piercing tones of Queen Bitch herself.

“You’re not _serious_ , are you, Mycroft?”

 _Oh, this will be good_ , thought he, taking another long draw of the fag. _Fifty Reasons I Think Your Paramour Is Wholly Unsuitable For You Because God Forbid A Grown Man Know What He Wants… 1. I don’t like him. 2. I_ really _don’t like him…_

“Rough trade is one thing, but really… bringing it into the family home.” _Next thing I’ll be a bit of rough_ , Greg thought, more bitterly amused than anything. _Now, would that be a promotion in rank or not?_ He couldn’t hear Mycroft’s reply – if he’d even _made_ one, that was – but Annis gave a derisive snort. “Well, why on earth did you bring him? Darling, really, let’s be sensible about this…” He dropped the cigarette on the ground, rose, and scuffed it out with a lazy kick; he had no desire to hear his character systematically assassinated, so he walked further out under the awnings covering the sides of the house, pulling his mobile out of his pocket. If Mycroft was allowed to make work calls, well, so was he.

He’d just finished talking through recent paperwork with a bemused Sally (“Aren’t you meant to be on holiday?” “Yeah, well, not as restful as I’d thought it’d be…”) when Barrymore called him in for dinner.

The dining table was the most ridiculous, unnecessarily long thing he’d ever seen. It could easily hold his team, and then some; in other words, pretty much the least suitable sitting place for three people having dinner. He sat opposite Mycroft but for a seat, and a further two seats to the right of Annis, as far away as could be considered polite. If he thought he could get away with it, he'd've tried sitting down the other end, but had the idea it might not be entirely politically correct. Not that Annis herself was a champion for the cause, but resisting lowering yourself to people's levels and all that.

Mycroft kept doing a strange thing whereby he would glance at Greg, but immediately look away when Greg looked at him. Like their first date, if their first date had a nastily smiling Annis looking on.

The response _du jour_ seemed to favour ignoring Greg entirely, for which he was very grateful.

Well, ignoring him until halfway through dinner, at least.

Just as he attempted to inhale a roast potato, Annis enquired, in a bored tone, “And, ah, George—” Mycroft took a prolonged sip of wine, closing his eyes wearily, “Your family is in which... trade, exactly?”

He managed to swallow the scaldingly hot potato, blink back the tears, and croak out, “Wine-making,” before also having to dive for his glass.

“Indeed? Your parents are viticulturists? How... peculiar.”

“Not really all that peculiar,” Mycroft replied with a tight smile. “Is it, Greg?”

 _Oh,_ now _you want to play happy couples?_ “Yeah, actually,” Greg said instead, “it was a bit strange, given mum'd been a lawyer all her life and dad was an inspector. But I s’pose everyone's got something they love.”

“Quite,” she said, glancing from Mycroft to him and back again with an oddly satisfied expression on her face.

“What about you?” he asked, smiling sweetly right back at her.

She raised her eyebrows. “Beg pardon?”

“Oh, I just thought there must be something you enjoy doing.” Or not.

Annis stared at him a long while. “Gardening,” she said, eventually.

“Oh, really? How nice.” She was watching him again in that singularly piercing way of hers, and Greg's smile grew. “Is that rose garden your work?” Annis tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing. He could almost hear the question – _what's your game_ – whirling around in her expansive mind. He really would have to thank Sherlock for being Sherlock one day. It was marvelous help in knowing how to shut down the insults for a moment. Kill them with kindness.

“Yes,” she said curtly, then turned to Mycroft. “How is Anthea, dear? I'm simply dying to meet her, she does sound like such a special young woman.” Greg wasn't too sure if the emphasis there was on 'special,' 'young,' or (worse still) 'woman.'

Mycroft was looking into the depths of his wine glass as though he expected some sort of portal to appear, one that would let him vanish from this dining room. All of the 'be nice to the sleeping dragon' vibes vanished with an audible _whoosh_.

“Unfortunately quite busy.”

“Dear, do you really work her that hard? I'm certain she'd appreciate the country air.”

“She much prefers the city smog.”

“She simply doesn't know what she's missing.”

“I can see it's done you a world of good,” Greg muttered into the last of his chicken. Annis turned her thousand watt stare back on him.

“Excuse me, I don't think I quite caught that.”

“Ah, hard of hearing? I said it's done you a world of good; you look extremely... healthy! And hale.”

Her mouth curled into a rictus. “Indeed. Tell me, what is it that you do again?”

Uh oh. Job questions were always dangerous territory. “I'm an inspector for Scotland Yard.”

“I must say it's very curious that you and Mycroft should have met, isn't it,” she said. Despite it not being a question, Greg decided to take it as one.

“Yeah, the situation may have been a bit less than ideal, but I'm really glad I got the chance to—” _fall in love with_ “—meet your son.” Greg grinned at Mycroft, who did not look up from a careful and painstaking examination of his fork handle. His grin faltered slightly.

“Mmm, yes, I'm sure.” Annis paused and sighed. “I do hope you'll forgive me my former rudeness, Greg.”

What?

No, wait, _what?_

Even Mycroft looked up – sharply, watching his mother with an indescribable expression.

“It's just that Mycroft has simply had so many potential partners that one simply doesn't learn to hope. Oh, darling, who was that last one? Lord something or other...”

“Moncrieff,” he replied quietly. The tips of his ears were suffused a bright pink – a display Greg would have thought adorable, had he not been filled with sudden, vicious anger.

“Ah yes. He was lovely, wasn't he? So sophisticated; entirely your match. Still,” she added insincerely, addressing a internally burning Greg, “I'm sure you two are very... contented with one another.” That fucking shark-smile again. _I win,_ it said _. I win, I win, I. Win._

Dinner was well and truly over by that point so, after listening to Annis pontificate about the world for another ten minutes and then declare her intention to go into the parlor for some tea before bed, Greg pulled his boyfriend aside. “Can I've a word, please?”

Mycroft looked at him for the first time that night, and it was a look of equal parts discomfort, foreboding and resignation before being smoothed over with a bureaucrat’s fake smile. “Let's go to the study, shall we?”

 

\---

 

“Whisky?” Mycroft enquired, striding into the study and immediately burying himself in the drinks cabinet. “I’ve brandy, if you'd like, sherry... Or, no, I know you don't prefer spirits – there's some old tawny here...” The sound of glasses clacking together was overly loud, and Greg remained keenly aware that he was the only thing in the room not being looked at.

“Mycroft.”

“Port?” A thought evidently occurred to him, and he all but jerked up from the cabinet, tumbler in one hand and bottle of whisky in the other. “I could call Barrymore, get him to send up some wine – you liked the Spanish red, didn't you? The Australian sparkling wines aren't too bad on the palate, either.”

As he attempted to breeze past, Greg caught his elbow and lightly pushed him back, forcing him to make eye-contact. For a second, at least. “Mycroft, I don't care about the wine. It's fine. We need to talk.”

Mycroft stared at him for a moment, then said: “Very well, excuse me while I fix myself a drink.” Greg waited patiently as he walked slowly back over to the cabinet, took his time putting ice in the glass, carefully poured the drink, and, with an almost glacier-like speed, turned back to face Greg. It soon became apparent that he wasn't going to say a word until Greg did. Which was great, because he had _such_ a good track-record with saying all the right things, didn’t he? Mycroft was meant to be the suave orator out of the pair of them; why did Greg have to start off addressing what was likely to be the mother of all sensitive topics?

“This has to stop,” he decided upon finally.

“I'm sure I don't know what you mean.” Fantastic – to top it off, Mycroft was in full-on, icy, _“I-will-protect-all-of-the-government-secrets,”_ mode.

“Look, I know she's your mum and everything, but that was not on.”

Mycroft raised a hand. “Don't.”

“Don't what?” The only response was a small shake of the head; Greg let loose an incredulous bark of laughter. “I don't fucking know what you mean if you won't tell me!”

"Must you shout?"

“If it's the only way I'm going to get any sort of reaction from you.” Another pause. Greg was getting really fucking sick of all these apparently meaningful silences. “She's deliberately trying to tear us apart—”

"Greg, _really_."

“—and you're just sitting there like a fucking limp bride waiting for it to happen! Mycroft, I just can't…” He broke off, scrubbed at his neck angrily and re-started: “I can't do this if you're not on my side, I really can't.”

Mycroft made a small, contemptuous noise. “Where do you get this notion of 'sides'? Life is not a Victorian novel, Gregory; nothing is helpfully in black and white, labelled so you can pick the right choice. As you've so astutely pointed out, she is my mother. You've hardly been a model of how to conduct oneself, anyway.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I'm merely pointing out that at every point you've responded to her jibes...”

“So, so what, whenever she starts off on how much she's disappointed you're buggering the wrong sex I should just sit and nod and keep my trap shut?”

“ _Yes!_ ” The hiss was so unexpected that Greg's heart skipped a beat, pulse pounding in his ears a moment later to make up for it. Mycroft pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers, took a deep breath, and continued more calmly. “Yes, that's exactly it. Do anything _but_ respond to it.”

“She's _wrong_. It's none of her business.”

He gave a brittle laugh, still holding the top of his nose as if he might collapse otherwise. “Do you imagine she cares?” He paused to take a drink, swiped his tongue over his bottom lip, and then drained the rest of the tightly-clutched glass. “It's a power game. Everything is.”

“And you think you'll win by not playing?” Greg shook his head incredulously. “See, I was expecting some sort of pissy reason like the fact that she’s your mum, but that just tops it. She is steam-rolling you, Mycroft – you, who can literally make foreign leaders cry with one look. Why won't you stick it to her?”

“Yes, that worked so well with your own parents, did it not?” he bit back, setting the tumbler down with force.

“Yeah,” Greg replied, feeling suddenly, absurdly calm, “it did. I haven't seen them in five years, and I don't plan on doing so ever again. The difference between us is that you can somehow stomach all this homophobic bullshit. I'm not going to put up with it. It's stupid, she's wrong, and you're just encouraging her. If you want to dance to her little tune, fine, but I'm not going to let her humiliate and belittle you in front of me.”

“Then don’t be in the same room as her. This isn't some kind of bloody crusade,” Mycroft snapped. His hand twitched up, before being forced back down. “As you so _lovingly_ reminded me, it is a week – now four days – of what was meant to be a holiday. I hardly see what makes it so strenuous to pretend for _four days_ that you can maintain diplomatic relations with her. Furthermore, I'm not overly fond of the idea of never talking to my only remaining parent again, even if you are, because the _real_ difference between us is that I understand the concept of saying one thing while thinking another. No, I don't agree with her views on who I should marry and what gender they should be and how many heirs I should produce, but, _strangely enough_ , that doesn't encompass the entire spectrum of my mother's thoughts, nor mine!” There were two spots of colour high in his cheeks by the time he finished, chest visibly rising with every breath he took.

The room echoed with silence.

Greg had always thought that poetical crap was nonsense, but that's what it did.

He was very slowly getting the sense that something was seriously fucked up.

And, to make it worse, he was pretty sure that at least a quarter of it was his fault.

“Mycroft,” he said quietly, stepping forward to reach for him. He was side-stepped.

“I've got a headache and I'm going to bed. Goodnight,” Mycroft said, before shutting the door firmly behind him, leaving Greg in the middle of the room, a cold pit of ice condensing in his chest.


	4. They Get Worse (or, She Hates Me Too!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beware of visitors bearing advice.

Greg slept badly – kept waking up after reaching across the bed and finding nothing but cold, empty sheets. The fifth time he did that, he jolted himself into a semi-awake haze, blinking rapidly, and feeling cold and needy and… fuck.

This was so messed up.

Somebody needed to do _something_ , he knew. The difficulty was in screwing up the courage and finding out what the hell it was. His sigh broke the heavy stillness of the room as he dug fingertips into his face.

He wasn’t a genius. He wasn’t even particularly bright. It would be so much easier if Mycroft let a crack appear in that flawless armour, or actually talked to him directly instead of veiling everything in half-meanings and subtle insinuations of where he was going wrong. Even the—Christ, even the fucking argument last night hadn’t given him any indication aside from _Mycroft’s angry, and more with you than his mum_. What the fuck was he meant to do about it? Grovel for forgiveness? Pretend everything was just fantastic?

Leave?

Before he could let himself entertain that thought too closely, he got up, fetched a smoke, and balanced in the open window-sill as he fumbled with the lighter. The cold wasn’t helping his shaking hands, but it did wake him up. Letting the smoke drift out into the cold air, Greg watched the sun slowly peek above the horizon, light bleeding out onto the dewy, damp grounds. By the time he finished the cigarette and let the smouldering butt drop onto the sandy-coloured gravel below, the grounds were fully covered in yellow, sickly light, somehow made even more grotesque because of it.

The vantage point that the second story provided allowed him to see just beyond the fringes of the estate. There was a black car stalled at the very end of the driveway, with two, indistinct figures stepping out. One of them kicked the car. Their being here struck him as a bit weird – who came out this far into the country without good reason (and in such a shitty car)? _Probably some bloody tourists_ , he reasoned finally, dragging his gaze from the strange car down to the ground below. _Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair_ , he scoffed, running a hand through his own, spiky mess. He looked at the packet of smokes, thought about how disappointed Mycroft would be, and lit another cigarette.

It was another few minutes before he tentatively made his way downstairs. He supposed that you could say he was doing his best to avoid both of the Holmeses, but ‘avoiding’ implied that one of them was looking for him. The only person in the kitchen was Barrymore, who didn’t look up from a cup of tea to do anything but smile politely at Greg. To his bleary, sleep-starved mind, tea seemed like the greatest thing in the world right then, as did a bit of country air. 

Quite by accident, he found Mycroft sitting out the back on the little iron-wrought table-set, surrounded by papers. Greg hesitated for a moment, tapping a finger against his warm teacup and wondering whether or not… The decision was made for him when Mycroft, without even glancing up, shifted some of the papers away from the other chair and continued about his business.

“'Lo,” Greg said after he sat down, feeling like a colossal idiot. Mycroft smiled tightly at his papers, muttering back a grudging greeting. “You, um…” he said, without really knowing how to finish and then trailing off into what had to be the world’s most awkward silence. He was ignored. Probably for the best. For ten minutes he tried very hard not to think about anything at all, and mostly succeeded. Then the tea ran out and he was left with jittery, unoccupied hands and a niggling _smokesmokesmokesmokesmoke_ in the back of his head.

Mycroft broke the silence, flipping a page over with a little moue of disdain. “I shouldn’t have bought you that pack.”

“No,” he agreed, forcing his leg to stop bouncing up and down for the third time. _I shouldn’t have insisted on coming here_ , he thought.

The elder Holmes glanced up and said, “Indeed.” Greg wasn’t entirely sure if he was agreeing with Greg’s agreement, or responding to the thought. “Kindly stop chewing your thumb,” he added, once again pouring over whatever highly important documents these were.

Greg frowned, but, after he picked off one last bit of skin, stopped.

Back to the silence it was, then.

“I am sorry,” was the grudging, mumbled, nearly incomprehensible apology that came fifteen minutes later. If Greg hadn’t been bored stiff and hyper-alert, he might not have even heard it; as it was, he hardly believed that he had.

“’Scuse me?”

Again, his partner glanced up, all withering stares and contemptuous curling of the mouth. “It hardly bears repeating.”

“Yeah. Right. Apology accepted.”

There was a beat of silence. “And?”

“And what?”

“Typically it is understood that both parties request forgiveness after an altercation.”

“Mmm,” he replied. “What am I saying sorry for, again?”

“Do you need a reason?”

“Typically…”

“Yes, very droll,” Mycroft said coldly, not sounding like he found it very droll at all. He gathered the papers into a rough pile. “It’s of no matter. You don’t want to apologise? Fine. This subject is over.”

Greg snagged the sleeve of his jacket as he went to stand up, trying to pull him back down. “Hey, hey, hey. Talk to me.” The blue, piercing stare was pretty unnerving (but, Greg thought in amusement, his mum was worse.) “I’m sorry for making you feel uncomfortable,” he attempted. Mycroft’s mouth curled up again, but he stopped trying to push away. “We need to work on…”

“Communication?”

Greg’s grin wasn’t its normal, cheery self, but he tried. For one moment, as Mycroft’s shoulders relaxed, he was convinced that this would be it, that they would have it all out here and work out a way of salvaging the rest of this week. 

And then, of course, it all went to shit as Sherlock fucking Holmes walked through the back door, John bounding in his wake like some bloody devoted puppy.

“I rang the doorbell,” Sherlock greeted them, voice perilously close to a whine. Mycroft slowly tensed up again; Greg thought he could almost hear his grinding teeth from here, and stood up as well to face the dynamic duo. John almost looked apologetic. Almost.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft said, chilling smile firmly plastered on, “ _what_ are you doing here?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but Greg beat him to it; if Mycroft could bloody well scold him, so could Greg.

“Sherlock, what part of, ‘I’m on holiday, don’t follow me,’ didn’t you get?” Sherlock looked vaguely insulted, and that was before Greg added, volume increasing, “Just because you knew where we were doesn’t give you bloody—”

“Carte blanche to follow us here,” Mycroft finished, growing, conversely, more and more wintery with every word. “Your being bored is not an excuse—”

“It’s definitely not a bloody excuse!” Greg added angrily. “I told you to find Gregson for cases when I went on holiday, not to go—”

“Gallivanting around the country after us. Mother and I are perfectly able to finish the transaction on our own, we do not require you, and we _certainly_ don’t need you—”

“Coming down here and buggering up a perfectly decent holiday!” They glanced at one another, silently acknowledged the blatant lie, and decided to overlook it. Sherlock’s face was twisted sourly, as if he’d swallowed several lemons in short succession. John, sod that he was, was trying very hard not to laugh and not doing a very good job of it. “Don’t _you_ fucking start,” Greg snapped at him. He raised one hand in surrender, sniggering into the other.

“I was _invited_ ,” Sherlock said, voice clipped. Mycroft actually rolled his eyes.

“Oh, yes? And how often do you respond to said invitations? Why,” he looked mock-thoughtful, “I do believe you’ve never accepted a one.”

“This is different!”

“How, _precisely_ , is this different?”

“I lived here too,” he snarled. It was like watching a yappy terrier facing down a large Doberman. Greg nearly felt sorry for Sherlock. Thankfully, the feeling soon gave way to the usual annoyance.

Mycroft, in fascinating contrast to not more than half an hour ago, looked totally at ease. “You left when you started University, saying, quote unquote, ‘I’m glad you’re inheriting this hellhole; I don’t want a single part of it,’ so forgive me if I am not wholly convinced of your sudden… enthusiasm.” 

His brother scowled, eyes darting between Mycroft and Greg, both of whom didn’t even bat an eyelid. “Even for you, Mycroft, that’s clichéd,” Sherlock said suddenly, looking all at once unaffected, voice the epitome of disdain. Greg didn’t believe the act for one second.

“Indeed?” Mycroft replied mildly, responding to the change of subject effortlessly. “I am sure _you_ would be well versed in the subject.” Sherlock’s façade of indifference flickered for a brief second before resuming faultlessly. It was like watching the tennis, except the rules were indistinguishable and, instead of normal balls, they were playing with grenades.

“Observational skills faltering in your dotage?” he sneered. “I suppose you've got underlings to do your work for you now; you always were lazy in that regard.”

“Ah, yes, your obsessive devotion to legwork… Pray tell: are you sure your own thinking faculties have not been damaged from one of your more novel escapades? You do appear to be missing the obvious, dear brother.”

“There's nothing – to – miss,” Sherlock snarled through gritted teeth. Whatever the hell they were talking about, Sherlock was getting more and more agitated: a stark contrast to his composed brother. He then began speaking rapidly, obviously looking to quickly try and press his advantage. “Quite unlike your state of affairs, _dear brother_. Will you leave it until it is far too late again? Maybe you think this time is serious – at what point will it fall apart, like it always does?”

He was given a cool reply: “Leave it be, Sherlock. You have no idea of what you are discussing – although,” Mycroft added in a near casual tone, “not for want of interest.”

“Don't—” The word slipped out before Sherlock clamped his mouth shut, glaring hatefully at his older brother. He then whirled on his heel and – Greg, for the life of him, could not think of a more apt word – _stormed_ into the house, having activated full on toddler-tantrum mode. John burst into peals of laughter, shook his head, and followed him in.

Mycroft's expression had not so much as twitched during the entire, short exchange, and the smile that then twisted its way onto his face spoke of a man who knew he had won. (It was, Greg noted, disturbingly similar to Annis’.)

“He’s going to be terrible now; you know that, don’t you?” he muttered to Mycroft, whose smile only broadened. 

“Only too well,” he said, with far more cheer than the situation called for. They shared an amused, fond look – before remembering that everything was not meant to be all right between them and quickly dropping their gazes, Mycroft smoothing down his jacket and Greg coughing into his fist.

“So, er, what was that all about?” he asked finally, once all the awkward shuffling had ended. Mycroft shrugged idly.

“Sherlock being a terrible liar, primarily.” He looked distant, withdrawn; those familiar, hated walls settling behind his eyes.

“About?”

Mycroft glanced down at him, and smiled thinly. “Nothing of importance.” Greg had almost worked up the courage to say something before he added briskly, “I’ll go get some tea,” and promptly disappeared into the house.

 

\---

 

An hour later, with neither hide nor hair of any living being (except for a grizzled, growling cat who eyed Greg suspiciously, jumped up on the chair adjacent and fell asleep), Greg was beginning to suspect that maybe, _just maybe_ , Mycroft was never going to return with tea.

Just as he managed to extract his hand from the cat’s grip, cat determined to maintain the belly rubbing, John came out, looking more than a little shell-shocked.

“You met their mum?” Greg said by way of greeting, gently pushing the tortie-tabby off the chair. The cat glared at him, raised its tail, and walked away with a distinct air of primness. John collapsed into the vacated seat.

“She hates me,” he said, sounding pole-axed.

Greg snorted; “Join the club, mate.”

“But I’m not even Sherlock’s… you know. I mean, I’m just his friend.”

“Did she imply you weren’t good enough for him anyway?” he asked dryly. John looked at him, surprised, and nodded.

“That’s exactly it. I said—right, get this, the _only_ thing I said was, ‘good afternoon,’ and from that she decided she hated me. She didn’t even talk to me, just turned to Sherlock and sneered,” John adopted a falsetto voice, doing a fairly reasonable impression of Annis, “‘ _This_ is your friend, darling? I’m sure he’s very... nice, even if he is an unemployed soldier.’” He looked utterly bewildered. “Do you think that’s where they get it from? The ‘hello, was it Afghanistan or Iraq’ thing?” Greg shrugged. “And I’m not unemployed,” he added, weakly.

“Yeah, not sure if, ‘preventing Sherlock from being a twat and dying,’ counts as a career in her eyes.”

“No, I mean, I’ve got a job again. At a clinic.” 

“Ah. Was it the one you…?” The unspoken, _turned down after you thought Sherlock had killed himself and remained in a depressed state for bordering on a year, completely alienating anyone who tried to help you and terrifying your friends in the process_ , resounded with surprising clarity for such a complex implication.

John understood, and he stared out into the grounds. He’d become a lot more pensive in those three years. “Nah,” he said finally, “different one.”

“Right,” Greg said, also staring out. It was the unspoken rule of male friendship that you weren’t supposed to look at each other when talking about shit like that. Bit of a crap rule, really, he thought.

“So you and, uh, Mycroft, then?” John said some moments later. He was bad at broaching subjects smoothly. Greg glanced at him.

“Yeah.”

John considered it, nodded, and that was that. “I think I’ll be mostly on part-time work.” By which he meant working until Sherlock chivvied him over to a crime scene.

“That’ll be good.” He picked at his thumb again, feeling by this point more or less resigned to the fact that they were never going to be as good friends as they’d been… well, _before_.

“Yeah.”

Greg nodded gravely, and asked, “You two lovebirds been right?” John shoved at his shoulder as he sniggered.

“Is it even worth telling you I’m not gay for the thousandth time?” Rolling his eyes in feigned exasperation, the doctor sighed. “Yeah, right as rain. Except for the fact that he’s been running himself into the ground over this school case and dragging me along with him.” He shrugged as if to say, _‘But what can you do?’_ It being Sherlock, Greg supposed the answer to that was not very much at all. “How’re you going—Christ, you’ve been up here for days, haven’t you?" 

“Don’t remind me,” Greg muttered.

“That bad?”

“Worse.”

John looked as if he were mentally preparing for another tour of duty; Greg swore he could almost hear the sarcastic, _‘Oh, great,’_ that must have been resounding in his head. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and Greg stared out over the green, lush fields that surrounded the manor, feeling rather sorry for himself. Pathetically, he wanted things to just magically be fixed, so he didn’t have to rehash over the conversations of the past few days or – even more terrifying a thought – go back into the house and put up with Annis for any longer than was strictly necessary.

He was brought abruptly out of his moping by the arrival of Sherlock, who declared, “There you are, John!”, got a chair, and forced it between the pair of them so he could sit in the middle. “Why did you make me come to this hellish place?” he demanded, getting straight to it.

“I wanted to meet your mum, you know, like normal people do?” John retorted. Greg rolled his eyes; still like an old married couple, even after three years of separation.

“Why did you want to do _that_?”

“Well, I didn’t think your mother would be the—the bloody Ice Queen!" 

“Why not?” Sherlock sounded genuinely puzzled. “You know Mycroft. I told you she was like him. Surely you should have known that the two of you wouldn’t get on. She doesn’t like anyone who hasn’t got a manor, or two.”

“You have _two?_ ” Greg cut in. Fucking _hell_.

“Well, the other one is not so much a manor than it is a townhouse, but yes.” Sherlock turned to him, and noticed the packet of smokes he’d fished out of his pocket and been twirling idly. “Give me." 

“Sherlock, we said cold turkey!” John protested.

“And _I_ said we shouldn’t visit my mother, and look where that got us. Lestrade. _Now_.”

“Promise you’ll help me with the Davison case,” he replied, holding the pack away and pushing Sherlock back; he was clambering virtually on top of Greg, reaching for them in vain.

“Why must you bore me? _Fine_ ,” he snapped. “Cigarette!”

John made a noise of disgust as they both lit up, muttering, “When you get lung cancer, you’ll wish you’d listened to me. But oh, no! I’m just a doctor, what could I possibly know?”

Sherlock slouched in the chair, one elbow propped against the back, and gave a relieved sigh. For a few minutes, they were all silent, and Greg was considering just giving him a smoke whenever he wanted Sherlock to shut up. Seemed to work wonders, despite the filthy looks John was giving him.

“I’ve never seen Mycroft looking so uncomfortable,” the consultant mused, voice relaxed and filled with suppressed amusement. Greg glanced over at him.

“What d’you mean?”

“Surely you aren’t _that_ thick. He’s your…” Sherlock grimaced, “ _thing_ , for goodness sakes.”

“Boyfriend,” he said firmly, paying no attention to the faint gagging noise Sherlock made, “and I’ve got no idea what you’re going on about. He’s been playing dutiful mummy’s boy the entire trip. _I’m_ the one who’s uncomfortable.”

“Oh my _God_ ,” Sherlock groaned, with just a touch of melodrama. “You are so stupid it’s _painful_. John, surely you noticed? Don’t tell me I’m stuck between _two_ idiots.”

John was evidently choosing to ignore Sherlock due to the smoking debacle. It was almost sickening how much of a couple they were without actually being romantically involved.

“John? _John_ ,” he whined. “Oh, fine. Normally he wears a rather bizarre looking light brown outfit while in the country, which he looks absolutely awful in; however, he’s still in his work suit, indicating he feels threatened. Who by? You? Unlikely, given the united front you put on to welcome me—” Greg grinned, utterly unapologetic “—and the fact you’ve slept with each other at least once this trip; do try to restrain yourself while I’m here, by the way, that’s disgusting. So that implicates either _Mummy_ or one of the servants, also unlikely it’s the hired help, so! That raises the question of how our dearest mother is upsetting Mycroft.” He paused, as if hoping Greg would fill in the blanks, and then rolled his eyes. “Must I do _everything_ myself? There are also one or two other obvious signs that something’s wrong, which I’m sure you don’t want to hear, but I’ll tell you them anyway so _hopefully_ you aren’t so dense next time.

“His posture is normally impeccable, but his spine is always far too straight whenever he’s upset; he forgot his tiepin, frankly a shocking and obvious indication of something being wrong; and when we found Mummy he said a maximum of two sentences – most unlike my brother, who usually couldn’t shut up if he tried.  You also weren’t there for that little meeting. Given you haven’t run screaming, I’m guessing it’s not because you wanted to avoid John and I, but rather another member of the family there to extend her frosty welcome. So, clearly, you and Mummy have had a few differences of opinions; I’m guessing she’s being her usual insufferable, snobby self, and you’re being unusually thin-skinned, possibly due to her comments, more likely some residual problems with Mycroft. If you and he were ‘fine’, as you put it, you would have been there with him. Hence, he feels threatened by mother not liking you and is also lacking your support to regain any sense of confidence she strips away, am – I – wrong?" 

“You should be on one of those relationship programs.” Sherlock glared. As always, it took him a few moments to process Sherlock’s deductions, and when he had, he frowned. “He’s upset?”

“Bravo, the Detective Inspector finally is starting to understand. Truly, Scotland Yard’s finest.”

“I suppose that makes sense…” he said slowly, ignoring the jab about work. 

“It makes perfect sense!” Sherlock said, irritated. “However unfortunate it is, he _is_ my brother, and I do happen to know quite a bit about him. More than I want to, in fact.”

“Well, if that’s true, he only had to tell me,” Greg replied, with what he thought what reasonable logic: “Why’s he been ignoring me?”

“Because discretion is the better part of valour where Mycroft is concerned. He hides from his personal problems, even with you. Especially with you.” He gave a frustrated noise. “Why must I solve my brother’s relationship problems? Work it out yourselves! Or, even better, _don’t_ , so I don’t have to put up with images of you two together.”

“Sher _lock_!” John snapped, finally perking up. “Don’t listen to him, Greg: he’s just annoyed I pulled him away from the flat.”

“I was in the middle of an experiment, and _you_ wanted to go play happy families with my mother, and now we’re stuck here, and I’m _bored,_ and the only interesting thing to do is watch Lestrade’s relationship tumble down around his ears!”

Greg was torn between feeling bewildered and wanting to deck the insufferable prat. “It’s not ‘tumbling down around my ears’, people have relationship problems, and, yeah, they tend to occur when first meeting bitchy in-laws.”

Sherlock gave him the, ‘ _you-are-too-stupid-for-me-to-even-_ try _-to-explain-it-to-you_ ,’ scowl, which he’d not gotten for some time and was an unpleasant reminder of work.

“Don’t give me that look,” he growled.

“What look? I do not give looks.”

“Yes, you do,” Greg and John said in tandem.

The consultant huffed. “You two are ridiculous.”

John glanced at him affectionately. Christ, this was going to be three days of watching Sherlock and John be insufferably sappy and have what was tantamount to eye-sex. It was like being stuck in some kind of god-awful romantic comedy, but without any good bits, like raunchy sex. He took a long drag of his cigarette, and then stubbed out what was left on the antique table. He was going to give up. One day.

“Anyway, Greg,” John said, deciding to also pitch in with a bit of advice. This wasn’t one of those bloody Yankee self-help programs, was it? Surprise! Welcome to Jerry Springer. We’ll be bringing you a special edition tonight, where we answer the truly important questions. How do you handle a Holmes? What do you do when Mummy is mercilessly malevolent? And what does a man really _do_ at a manor house? “See, I reckon you and Mycroft… well, not to intrude or anything…”

“Jesus Christ, John,” he interrupted, rising from his seat. “I am _not_ taking relationship advice from _either_ of you. In fact, I—he— _we_ don’t need relationship advice, because we are doing _fine_.”

They both looked wholly unimpressed. He barely refrained from telling them where they could go, and instead retreated to the house. The moment he closed the door, he remembered why he’d been trying to avoid going inside in the first place and froze, instantly on the lookout for the Devil herself. But he couldn’t very well go back outside to that insufferable mob. Caught between a rock and a hard place – well, more than he had been before, anyway.

_Why the hell do I keep getting myself into shit like this?_

 

\---

 

“D’you think they’re plotting something?”

“Undoubtedly,” Mycroft replied, making a vicious note on the margin of a page. It was twilight now, and Greg had been hiding in the room for the better part of the day, deciding to eventually stick his courage to the place and (very, very hesitantly) make his way downstairs. The storm had abated for the morning, and returned in the afternoon with surprising force, so much so that the windowpanes were rattling and slamming against the sills. In such a big house, it was a little eerie; he may or may not have jumped every time he heard a bang. Finally, he’d made it to the kitchen, where he’d found a sullen Mycroft, a kettle, and a reprieve from the turbulence. For now, at least.

He leant against the kitchen counter, frowning at the casual reply. “Shouldn’t we, you know… stop them?”

“Probably.” Another note. He didn’t even think Mycroft was listening, just spewing mindless adverbs. The kettle shuddered as it hit boiling point; he really needed a cuppa, even if it was herbal crap. “Black tea’s in the top right cupboard,” his partner said, not looking up, before tutting at the paper. “Who can’t spell ‘annuity’?”

 _A-n-n-u-e… no, that’s not right. It’s annuité in French…_ He shook his head, reached up for the tin of Assam, thought about how fucking poncy this whole ordeal was, and made the tea anyway. “So?”

“Mm? So what?” 

“Are we going to do anything?”

“I hardly think there’s much to be done.” Greg, who was turned away from the bureaucrat, rolled his eyes. “Don’t sneer, dearest,” Mycroft said, in what Greg would have called, perhaps uncharitably, a sneering tone. He didn’t bother to protest; no point, anyway. No point at all.

They lingered in a state of mutual dissatisfaction for a long while, both silently conceding to the fact that the other was the most bearable person in the house. Greg made an obscene amount of tea, none of which he shared and little of which he drank; Mycroft pretended to be wholly absorbed in his work. 

Then the power went off.

“Oh Jesus fucking—” A scrape of a chair.

“There are candles in one of the drawers—let me—” near his face, a quiet hiss “—that’s my foot.”

“Sor—” An elbow slammed into his stomach, and suddenly he wasn’t quite so sorry. “Oi!” he wheezed.

“Apologies.” Scraping, drawers, where were the fucking drawers, where the fuck was Mycroft, why the fuck was it so fucking dark, where was his lighter. “Where are—I am going to wring his neck—”

“You can’t tell me Sherlock did this!”

“You can’t tell me he didn’t somehow manage to make this holiday more intolerable than it already—” Greg flicked his lighter on, holding it up between them; the light was dim, but it cast Mycroft’s face into sinister relief, a shadowy play of murky orange upon his face. They stared at one another for a moment, before he held up a box of candles, and said, crisply, “Here.”

Greg lit a candle, and then rummaged about for some plates to stick them on. “I know he’s a tosser—” Mycroft gave a snort “—but how in the hell could Sherlock have single-handedly shut down the power?”

“Oh, he’s quite _industrious_ ,” said Mycroft, managing to spit the word as if it were some kind of overwhelming and repulsive character flaw. Greg glanced over, eyebrows raised, only to have an equally disdainful stare leveled at him. They were silent a moment, until he opened his mouth to give a slightly less gleeful rendition of, ‘ _I told you so._ ’ “If we’re exchanging those,” Mycroft cut in, voice arctic. “I reserve the right to tell you I knew you would hate this trip, and still you did not listen.”

“That doesn’t—you didn’t say that on the way up here!” he hissed back. “You’ll get on great with my mum, you said. It’ll be fantastic, you said.”

“I don’t recall those words having ever crossed my lips." 

“And it’s not bloody fantastic; it’s a sodding nightmare—and, you know what? _I_ told _you_ we should look out for Sherlock because he always does mad stuff like this—”

“How on earth could I have predicted he would _shut down the entire power system?_ ”

“I don’t fucking _know!_ ” he snarled back, voice intent but low; it was the quietest, fiercest argument they’d had the whole trip—no, their whole relationship, even. “You’ve lived with him, you know what he’s like; all bloody experiments and blowing shit up and mad fucking behaviour.” He pushed the melted bottom of the candle onto the plate with much more force than was strictly necessary, continuing to vent even as he waited for it to cool so they wouldn’t be stumbling over one another in the fucking dark. “He probably—fucking hell, I don’t know—blew out the ground cables, the mad fucking twat.”

“That would be extremely unlikely—”

“Oh, God, I’m not a bloody expert about the fucking National Grid, for Christ’s sakes. Talking about your brother, he’s got some fucking issues, you know that? So’s your mum, come to think of it, and I’ve got no bloody idea how you can put up with them, ‘sides from the fact that—” Mycroft rolled his eyes in preparation for the inevitable progression in logic. “No, don’t roll your sodding eyes at me, this entire trip has been a study in fucking patience and I am absolutely at the end of my fucking tether right now.” He slammed the plate on the bench, and began the tedious process of lighting another candle.

“Are you quite done?” Mycroft enquired coldly. It was the biggest cliché in the bloody world, but Greg was quite certain that Mycroft would be slumped over the kitchen counter right now if looks could kill. 

“Yeah,” he ground out, nearly snapping the candle in white-knuckled grip. “Great. Fine. Everything’s roses and fucking peaches.”

To be perfectly honest, Greg wasn’t quite sure what happened next: only that one minute they were staring daggers, knives, and any other sharp instrument you could think of at each other, and the next he had Mycroft caged into the corner of the counters, yanking his partner’s shirt out from where it was neatly tucked, and feeling Mycroft tugging at his bottom lip, too-fucking-sharp teeth leaving a bloody trail. He wasn’t even entirely aroused – talking about Sherlock tended to do that – but lovely, long legs pinched around his waist in almost goading pressure as he slid a hand up to fully disentangle the shirt. God, it was all the motivation he needed to jerk Mycroft’s fly down, pushing him nearly up into the kitchen cupboards – “Careful, you dolt!” – as Greg tried as gracefully as he could to pull the trousers down and out of the way. He only got as far as Mycroft’s arse, but that was enough. Mycroft was doing a pretty solid job of trying to pull Greg’s hair out, both hands fisting around the roots, as he was not so gently tugged from his pants.

“You filthy sod, you were hard the whole time,” he panted, only to have his hair yanked in an even tighter grip.

“Abstain from speech,” Mycroft hissed, still unbearably fucking posh even with a hard-on. Greg gave him his best sneer, tugging his cock in a brusque, one handed grip; Mycroft let out a harsh growl and all but thrust Greg’s head down until he was eye-level with the man’s, bless it, swollen cock. 

He tutted in false sympathy; “Is it painful?”

“ _Greg_ ,” came the utterly expected snarl, as well as another, fierce pull on his hair.

“Since you put it so nicely,” he muttered to the cock in question and, before Mycroft could actually explode in anticipatory anger, bent his head down to lick one long stripe from his bollocks to the very tip. Fingernails dug into his skull as he lapped lightly at the head.

“Get on with it, you tease,” Mycroft spat. He let out a prolonged hiss when Greg scraped his teeth along the tip in warning, pulled back for a moment to suck enough saliva into his mouth – “Greg, I swear to any deity still listening I will— _fu_ — _nhh—_ ,” – and then, with rather exceptional control, swallowed at least three-quarters of Mycroft’s cock.

There was a _thud_ as he banged his head back on the cabinet. For once, he seemed to be stunned speechless, thought Greg as he glanced coyly up at his, _his_ partner. Mycroft’s head was tilted back, eyes closed, and his pretty, pink mouth open in utter ecstasy. He had both hands now braced on the counter to keep himself upright. Greg would have laughed, had his mouth not been full of Mycroft; as it was, he slowly pulled the slick, hot organ back out into the cold air – and there was a keen, he definitely heard a keen – before thrusting it back in. It became a bit of a game, really: see how much he needed to deep-throat Mycroft before the man let a stuttered, reluctant noise escape. It got much less as they went on, until he could stop, with just the tip in his mouth, and let his tongue trail over his warmth. It was probably a little cruel, but he was still in a vicious temper and prone to a little cruelty.

He knew Mycroft was close when a hand found its way back into his hair, tugging much more lightly at the strands. He rather fancied he could feel the beat of Mycroft’s heart through his cock (and wasn’t that a bloody romantic thought) and readied to put the man out of his misery with one last swallow—

“Mycroft!” came a piercing voice, only just audible. It was often unwanted, but he felt it more keenly now than ever as he froze, mouth still encased around Mycroft’s cock.

“ _No_ ,” Mycroft hissed. He went completely rigid for a moment and Greg almost thought he was about to come – the dirty fucker – until a foot pressed up against his shoulder and pushed him clear off his still-hard lover. In a frantic fit of energy, Mycroft tucked himself back in with a choked groan, tugged up his trousers and zipped himself up quickly, dragging a little over the still prominent bulge. Greg raised his eyebrows, making no move to wipe away the spittle around his mouth. They were grown men, after all: no need to bend to Annis’ every fucking whim.

“Mycroft, come here!” Annis called again… still sounding just hearable. Had she even moved? Oh, that fucking woman…

“I’ll be there momentarily!” Mycroft called back, looking strained. Greg glanced from his face to his crotch, licking his lips with an obscene pop. “Just—five minutes!”

“You think I need five minutes to finish you off?” he asked softly, walking over to where the bureaucrat was indiscreetly palming himself.

“No,” Mycroft breathed. “I’ll do it myself. No need to fr- _et_ —!” Again, Greg thrust him backwards into the kitchen counters, grinding up against the man with his hips this time. “Wait, I need to— _oh_.” He fell very quiet, face flushed a decadent shade of pink, and Greg reached down to cup him through his clothing. It was over in a matter of a minute, at the end of which Mycroft leaned heavily against the counter, panting silently, and trousers darkening with the evidence of their sordid little fuck. Greg privately counted it as a victory; the powerful Mycroft Holmes brought to shaky-legged submission by a bit of oral sex.

“Let’s go clean up,” Greg said solicitously, smiling like the proverbial cat.


End file.
